Give Go1 a try. I know nothing about the quality of their content, nor their pricing, but if you sign up I'd be keen to hear how you found it.

I personally don’t like urine testing for random drug testing because it’s not inclusive and only causes unnecessary stress. Especially when there is a product on the market that is better suited to this task.

Peeing in a cup is not a simple task for some people. It’s compounded when you consider menstruation, gynaecological health and pelvic floor health, such as infections and incontinence. ‘Stage fright’ is a form of anxiety. How do you ask someone who has a catheter to pee in a cup?

All of these can be dealt with in a sensitive manner by a health professional. But I have never seen random testing in the workplace be anything more than ableist and sexist.

In saying all this, I do know that some neurodivergent people with tactile aversion would not do well with the saliva testing, so I would suggest to open it up for what method works best for the person involved.

I teach the HSR1 course and I would say that roughly 5%-ish of the students I teach are doing the course again so it's not as uncommon as you might think. There is a lot of content covered in a HSR1 course so I agree with the above comment about having a conversation with them to see what they still remember.

There is also the level 2 and level 3 courses which can be taken through to certificate level. I would also make contact with HSR connection point at Worksafe and see if they have any further reccomendations on training pathways.

Hi Brendon,

Full disclosure before I carry on that I am a Mental Health First Aid instructor, so of course that means I support the program, but I will try and give some advice as someone who has also spent many years in the H&S space.

The first thing to know is that not all mental health first aid courses are the same. It is not trained to a NZQA standard and therefore there are many MHFA products on the market that you can attend and come out calling yourself a MH first aider. Effectively there is no national or external oversight of the training quality/content/quantity of the different products.

The exception to this is MHFA Aotearoa which is who I am affiliated with (I know this sounds like a sales pitch but it’s not!) and I like to think that this program goes beyond teaching knowledge, but it is also about ensuring capability. This is the only program accredited with MHFA International which has international oversight of the content. Research into the effectiveness of this course has been ongoing since 2000 and there is an extensive amount of research that clearly indicates the effectiveness of the program. Read more here: https://mhfainternational.org/mhfa-program-evaluations/

I also think it’s really important to remember that MHFA is mental health literacy 101. For most people, this is the very first time in their life that someone has sat down to talk to them about mental health. Just like first aid doesn’t teach you to be a doctor, MHFA is not teaching you to be a therapist, and we should never expect a mental health first aider to act in lieu of a therapist. A mental health first aider is the first response to identify a change in a person and encourage them to seek professional help.

Its also important to remember that MHFA plays only one part of an integrated approach to mentally healthy work. It is not a one stop solution to fix all the problems in a company, just like regular first aid does not stop vehicle accidents at work. But first aid training is an integral part of our risk management process, because no one can ever fully 100% guarantee that you can control all risks within a workplace (and I have yet to see someone say that we should stop training in regular first aid).

Lastly, I think all training and awareness in the mental health space can make a positive difference. The latest suicide statistics for NZ came out recently, and while one suicide is one too many, it has now been the 3rd year on year reduction in suicide numbers, and this is the lowest (statistically significant) average rate in the last 13 years. This is progress in the right direction. I wish you all the best finding something suitable for your team.

Hi Peter, any chance of getting the SOTN result summary? Thanks

I’ve already seen some different interpretations of this ruling so is someone able to please clarify:

Is it:

You need to be a member of the professional organisations that are members of HASANZ such as NZISM. (Therefore applies all levels of membership within NZISM)

Or

You need to hold the grade of a ‘professional member’ of a professional organisation that are members of HASANZ such as NZISM. (Therefore only applies to ‘professional’ grade membership and above within NZISM.)

??

TIA

Hi Steve , do you know anything about the fire control measures being used in lithium battery installations in the maritime sector? I see there is an electric ferry operating now in Wellington now, and the America Cup chase boats have substantial batteries in them. It’s one thing to have a fire on land with half a chance of escaping it, but it’s another to be surrounded by water with no escape route.

Its moving away from the workplace setting but lithium installations are becoming increasing popular in recreational boats due to their exceptional operational performance, but most people I speak to have very little understanding on the risks involved. I had a fire investigator tell me only a few weeks ago that anyone considering a lithium installation on a boat was absolutely mad. It seems like a disaster waiting to happen.

Hi Riki,

My advice to you would be to find your tribe. Develop a network of other H&S practitioners in your area that you trust, that can use as a sounding board, and who can offer kind words of advice when times get rough. These people are invaluable, particularly if you are working as the single H&S resource as a company. I am buoyed by the support that can come from the structured national networks and other regional networks. I encourage you to reach out to them. It is something I never had as a young practitioner but I would have benefited from immensely.

All the best in your new career.

I’d hedge a bet that given the flag that the ship sails under it is what’s called ‘Flag of Convenience’ (FOC). A common way for a ship’s owner to reduce the operating costs and inherently reduces the safety and seaworthiness of the vessel. IMHO this is a contributing factor to why seafaring is now akin to ‘modern day slavery’.

I don’t know much about the NZ flag requirements, but in Australia the senior officers of the ship are required to sit in-depth medical training, much more that an Cat 1 offshore medic. And the first aid equipment is extensive and includes very good analgesia’s. I wonder if those requirements are required by the Panama flag or the IMO? I don’t know the legislation well enough, as Margaret pointed out, it is very complex.

It appears NZ has taken some proactive measures in improving the welfare of FFF, but from what I understand that doesn’t include the merchant navy. And as long as the merchant navy sails under the FOC its going to be a long push uphill to improve welfare of seafarers. It appears the lesson for companies who send staff into these environments is that you cannot reasonably expect that there will be duty of care akin to what we are used to in NZ.

Hi Robyn, we pay the costs for our employees. Physio, pharmacy supplies, any recommended products. We work off the ethics of looking after our staff in a time of need.

Hi Jo, I feel your frustration. Birds are an absolute nuisance and we spend a lot of time waging war against them. Worksafe just released the bird scaring guidelines that were developed with the agriculture industry, hopefully they might help you or give you new ideas. I wish you luck. https://www.worksafe.govt.nz/topic-and-industry/horticulture/bird-scaring-methods-an-introduction-to-risk-management/

There were three major unions in the industry I used to work in over there and membership on projects was mandatory. They definitely held a lot of influence and it was not uncommon to hear staff say they would be contacting the union. So they always had them to check in with and have their back when needed, hence likely increasing the ability of staff to put forth a challenge on safety terms. However, I've not worked in this space in NZ so cannot offer a comparison.

Some general insights I’m quite happy to share.

Australians are by nature more forthcoming. In the workforce I think this trait means they rely less on things like pyschcological safety to say their minds and raise issues. They literally just say it! Kiwis will put up with a lot more and conditions in the workplace have to deteriorate until they get quite bad before we will pipe up and say something.

I’ve often wondered if having had so many years of heavy industry work (mining, O&G, offshore, LNG, drilling etc) in Australia has helped with the core safety knowledge of the workforce as over the years I’m sure a lot of people have passed thru these workplaces. Working in these environments is a bit like safety bootcamp, its dictatorial and domineering, and I’m not saying it’s right, but when you come out the other end the basics of safety have been drummed into you so much that nothing else ever becomes a problem. You can tell the people in NZ who have worked this experience because usually their core safety knowledge is elevated and they are more confident managing and discussing safety. I’d be interested to know if this has ever been studied.

From a process point of view the high risk work licence (HRWL) scheme in Australia is much better than the NZQA framework. Its easy to understand, very clear, and in my experience is the training is better. Take forklifts for example, in Oz it’s a two day course, in NZ its 4 hours if the trainer is having a slow day. Then NZ has this F endorsement of which the bureaucracy of having this put on your licence can take longer than the course itself (I’m in a small town where the licensing agency struggles with this task and it can be very frustrating). Whether this system contributes to incident rates I don’t know, but I can vouch that it is definitely very clear and easy to use.

Overall though I believe that success is not measured by comparing ourselves to others. Success is comparing ourselves to ourselves and asking the question: are we a safer country, a better place to work, a better industry of safety professionals, than we were yesterday? Or last month? Or last year?

Five months ago I placed a H&S invitation to Grant Dalton on this thread. I had every intention of tracking Grant down for a casual conversation on my yacht but alas the purchase timeframe blew out longer than I expected, and I didn’t hold ownership rights until it was too late. Then I had to sail it halfway down the country.

However, this is not over and the invitation still stands.

Clearly Grant Dalton has something to say, and I’d like to think that the H&S industry is ready and willing to learn from him. I reckon we are an incredibly connected bunch of people on here so let’s get that invitation through to him. Operation ‘Grants Rants’ begins!

I don’t have, nor can I find, any contact details for GD, therefore I’m looking for someone connected enough to know how to reach him. Are you associated with one of the ETNZ sponsors and in a position of influence to reach out. Sponsors are:

• Emirates
• Toyota
• Spark
• McDonalds
• Omega
• SkyCity
• Genesis
• Steinlager
• HP
• TVNZ
• Themarket.com
• McKinsey & Company

Perhaps you know of someone in an associated entity such as:

• Americas Cup Events Ltd
• Team New Zealand
• PR or media company used by the above
• RNZYS
• Yachting NZ
• The company who invited him to the first H&S seminar

I’m also going to need a place to invite him, my yacht is no longer in Auckland, so if anyone has an alternative let me know.

This could be the uprising we have been waiting for, so if you’re onboard and can help, send me a message and let’s track him down for what I’m sure will be an interesting discussion on H&S. :)

Before I discredit anyone’s creative juices I always recall the great piece of wisdom that goes a little something like this:

The next time you are afraid to share an idea just remember someone once sat in a meeting and said “Lets make a movie about a tornado full of sharks” That movie is now the highest grossing film franchise of all time worth $4.5 billion.

Moral of the story – you’ve got to try, so good on WorkSafe. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don’t. Ghost Chips was a winner (fun fact: I named my first yacht Ghost Chips) and I hope they find their viral moment. I’d love nothing more than to see H&S memes plastered everywhere.

Here’s some food for thought thou. I hope that as an industry we don’t project this negative reaction to our people when they think of crazy, different, spontaneous, and slightly wacky ideas. That would be really disappointing.

Lol, Grant Dalton has raced maxi yachts in the worlds most dangerous ocean dodging icebergs – 7 times! Grant raced in a time when the first women’s yacht entry were not expected to make it past the Canary Islands. If you are familiar with the Maiden story, H&S was used a front for more sinister means. The same carry on happened when Jessica Watson set out on her adventure. And ya know what, they smashed it! He has been around sailors who have set epic goals, challenged the status quo, taken risks, and have become inspirations and legends in their own right. The leadership skills of a skipper needs to be top notch to keep crew mentally, physically, and emotionally safe in the worlds harshest climates making split second decisions, it’s of the highest level. So I can understand his reaction when asked to sit thru a hazard meeting.

In saying all that, given his status and OBE, he didn’t need to be so rude.

So, Mr Dalton, I send you another H&S invite. I invite you to my yacht on the 11th November at Westhaven (its berthed only 50m from the RNZYS) come on down, I’ll pour you a rum, and let’s talk about how can the concepts of ocean racing be brought across to the everyday workforce. What lessons from operating in one of the world’s most unforgiving climates can be utilised to be benefit of every single NZer who heads off to work every single day. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

…hmmm this could turn into a social media campaign!

We gave our HRS a one off voucher to use to purchase company produced product upon election. We used it as an incentive for people to nominate themselves, and then provided outgoing HSRs with a voucher for a lower amount to say thanks for your service. However this is not tied to the tasks that they do during their tenure, or at least, not yet.

I’ve been in a situation where the change to health was neurological. It came to light as the employee had their driver’s license suspended over it, and being able to drive is a requirement of the job. Any changes to the license must be disclosed which is very clearly stated in our policies. In this instance I don't believe health monitoring or a fit for work medical would have been picked it up as symptoms can be hidden, or not immediately obvious, or sporadic. And also, health monitoring and medicals focus on the physical.

As you can imagine anything in this realm needs to be handled with upmost sensitively and people are very cagey about it.

Oh, I have a ball using social media for H&S engagement! We use FB over the other platforms as it’s what most people use anyway, and the only extra step they have to do is join the group. We have not found it to be difficult to manage, our GM is in the group so I think that stops anything super crazy from being posted and on the other side of that anything that, anything we have to moderate we do so without making a big fuss about it. So far no problem. This group is also used for multiple streams of content, both H&S, operational, cultural building activities, employee catch ups etc so this keeps it fresh and varied. The building blocks are:

• It’s a private group on FB. So it can be found by users but only content seen by members.
• There’s an approval process to join, including group rules.
• We have moderators and admins as per normal.
• We usually have this free for all members to post content and view automatically, but currently under COVID we have placed moderator approval on posts prior to viewing and some extra rules so this has meant that content creation is down.

I tend to run campaigns rather than regular content. I also have two HSR’s that are social media savy and help out a lot. I’ve found success is all about keeping it punchy, entertaining, and relevant to your audience (my audience are millennials and Gen Z). Some of the H&S content has included:
• Intsagram style short videos. Think Tasty style cooking video changed to how to put on a respirator. Our engagement was up 33% on this campaign compared to regular posts. Had a hashtag, #safetyatfirstsight gave out some prizes for content creation which included a mystery box prize. Went down really well.
• Boomerang posts are always well received.
• We did santas H&S elf posted to our FB group.
• We had another great campaign lined up this year using the title #safetysnaps - a mix of social media and polaroid photo board but have had to postpone.
• Going live hasn’t really taken off, staff are a little nervous something will happen in the background.
• We have tried the story function but it doesn’t work for a group which is a bit disappointing as it had a lot of promise.
• Next up I want to incorporate tiktok and want to make some H&S themed GIFs. Stay tuned!

I look towards our marketing team for ideas in this space, these are the people who are experts in engagement and building brands. I’m just taking those concepts and making them fit my agenda. It was satisfying and amusing when one manager said to me, ‘Health and safety at work, and in your Facebook feed!' :)

Yes we've done that. It was fine but we found some limitations with it. The next step would be to have an assessor come in, however I am searching to see if there are other options before committing to it.