Comments

  • Gender in health and safety in NZ
    The Safeguard income survey has included a basic income by male/female overall, but no breakdown of gender in the other areas surveyed.
    The 2019 survey summary was posted the 2020 survey thread on here - https://forum.safeguard.co.nz/discussion/404/safeguard-income-survey-2020-closes-friday
    You could possibly ask @Peter Bateman for the raw (anonymised) data.
  • The Hazard Register - what is it really for?
    The issue we find as if you do a thorough job of creating your register... it ends up as a lot of reading which most team members just glaze over.Chrissy Roff
    I think this is one of the key problems in how risk registers are developed/used, which then tends to lead to risk registers that sacrifice specific detail for (and attempt at) ease of use, and in doing so end up not being very useful at all.
    If you have a single company/division/section/site wide risk register consider it as a management tool, the single place to keep the overarching risk management decisions - for ease of use during "actual" work consider keeping all the information required for each specific task/job/tool in a single place (document) that includes not only the safety requirements but other information such as (for a tool) the specifications, required tools for maintenance, spare parts stock numbers, etc. That way if someone needs to refresh themselves on the tool/job they just need to refer to the specific details, not try and find it in the risk register, and the folder of manuals, and the spares catalogue, and the...
  • Accident Investigations - Tick & Flick?
    you didn't really cover the effect of lack of time which in my opinion has a great deal to do with "poor" investigation of lower severity incidents (which can then create an ingrained, and often unconscious, attitude/culture of how investigations are approached). Rarely are these lower severity incidents investigated by someone independent to the work, and so someone needs to work overtime to complete the investigation - after all the expectation is to be 100% productive when were on the clock right so the extra time to investigate has to be over and above their normal workload. Which I have seen in a lot of cases end with the injured person taking the blame to reduce the burden on everyone involved (or taking it one step earlier, the infamous non-reporting of incidents). This is generally only made worse with mandates of strict 24 hour / 7 days / etc. timeframes to close out an investigation (and sometimes even the associated corrective actions). No wonder we end up with the bare minimum to pass investigation reports (even if we give them a "good" investigation framework). And as I said this then can effect how higher severity incidents are investigated with the focus ingrained on the process of the investigation rather than the purpose.

    But to me the true real killer of "good" investigations is when nothing happens as a result of them (or at least any changes made don't visibly make work better for those affected). I would be interested to know from the forum members the split (gut feeling) between "fighting tooth-and-nail" vs "barely an inconvenience" to close out significant corrective actions that actually have a chance of effecting the root cause of incidents?
    Why put the effort into investigating something well, if that effort has a good chance of being wasted? Especially if that effort has to be done over and above your normal workload and you (likely) don't even get any recognition for putting in that effort!
    Unfortunately (like the investigations themselves) the scope of what is looked at when trying to imporve investigation techniques tend to focus on the processes and tools rather than any wider root cause organisational factors (ironically).
  • The Hazard Register - what is it really for?
    I have to admit when I read your thread title I can't help myself from singing the second and third lines of "War"... but that's just my facetious tendencies creeping out :wink:
    I do want to throw out an auxiliary question to the Brains Trust - does a hazard/risk register have to be a register at all?
    If the methods that you use to do business includes the identification, assessment, control and monitoring of risks - do these need to be transferred into a single central list of all hazards?
  • Smoking in a workshop.
    I would also add to think about understanding why the worker smokes within the workshop in the first place. Typically a smoke is used as a good time for a break, does he take breaks throughout the day or is he always on the go? Does he feel like he doesn't have time to go out for a quick smoke? If he feels / is seen as a critical cog in keeping the workshop turning over then that may be part of the reason why he feels that he should be able to keep working while he's smoking a ciggy.
  • Automotive Workshop Pit
    you highlight a good point that the situation can easily change - workshop doors open during summer to get a good breeze through, compared to shut up and heaters on to warm the place up in winter - completely different risk profiles. Remember that if you are renting dosimeters / personal gas monitors, that you should also record the situation/environment during the testing for reference.
  • Measurement of H&S performance
    We are in a high risk industry and management currently wants a more granular view which is also split by 4 areas within the overall group. I believe part of the reasoning is prep work for achieving ISO45001 as the measures are grouped by HSMS element and a number are different combinations of similar information i.e. % of e audits completed against the target and also how many of the management team achieved their individual targets. Meeting a lot of the measures should also mean we are completing the activities that need to be completed as part of the HSMS - if we can't complete the items being measured we may also have some staffing issues or fundamental problems. My role is now dedicated to analysis of our system so I'm tasked with finding the information or finding a way to record itAlex

    Alex, just be cautious and make sure that the ISO45001 standard is being used as a tool to assess and develop your H&S Managment system against and not a template H&S Management System, especially if you ever hear the quote that "what gets measured, gets managed."

    Also be wary that you do not fall into the thinking that more data is more information, be critical of why you are collecting each data point, what it is telling you and what are the actions that are intended to be taken based on that data.

    And on that last point, a recent Safety of Work podcast talked around what happended on the far side of an Audit and how/why actions do or don't get done.
    https://open.spotify.com/episode/29rFNZtxnOX37dFVuYV2mM?si=yPLd91ZKRFubmzQgjnRJZg
  • Tag Testing
    Yeah but unlike a WOF the regulation say it is considered electrically safe if it has a valid tag on it (R26 of the Electrical (Safety) Regulation).
    But I would expect that WorkSafe would never actually go after someone on an offence against R15.3 of the Electrical (Safety) Regulation when they could just used HSWA more effectively anyway.
  • Tag Testing
    It is worth noting that testing and tagging is not a mandatory legal requirement, which most people are unaware of. It's about risk management, not blindly following pre-set intervals.Craig Marriott

    But it is a damn good ass covering as any electrical equipment with a current tag (that has been applied as per the standard) is deemed electrically safe, which is the opposite of electrically unsafe and so you can not be considered to have not complied with the regulation to "not put any electrically unsafe equipment into service" if it has a tag on it...

    Of course this does nothing really for actually making it safe or not at the time of use (although the standard does include that a visual check prior to use is required), but that is not really the focus of compliance safety is it...
  • HS Reps - Allowance / Payment for services
    My experience says if the reps see that what they do makes a difference they will be interested. If what they do make no difference then the won't.Michael Wilson
    Further to Michael's comment instead of looking to "bribe" H&S Representatives to do what the company wants (sit in H&S Committee meetings, communicate the company's latest H&S messages to their teams, encourage workers to engage in the company's latest H&S initiative, etc.) wouldn't it be more effective to enable them to do what they want (H&S wise that is) - provide them each a budget that can be used for H&S initiatives that their teams actually want (better PPE, welding on lifting lugs to assist with moving heavy equipment, etc.) that would otherwise have to go through the normal slow and painful procurement process (and therefore never actually get done).
    I wonder how many of the H&S Committee meeting minute action items would be replaced with a simple "we did this" comment if this was the case...
  • Laying charges against officers: a useful strategy?
    One of the senior managers fall back response was "I only know what I know" Very frustrating and I should have barked back louder and told him to get off his backside and "go find out what he didn't know"Jim at SAMs
    If by senior management you mean part of the c-suite maybe if he just knew his due diligence included to gain an understanding of the nature of the operations of the business or undertaking of the PCBU and generally of the hazards and risks associated with those operations then maybe that would have prompted him to pull his head out of the sand...
  • Hand Sanitiser
    I just wonder if there aren't at least a few workplaces that are now non-compliance with the Hazardous Substances regulation after purchasing a decent amount of 3.1B hand sanitiser and now should actually have a Location Compliance Certificate (and associated controls) for the storeroom where it is kept...
  • Survey: what if recreational use of cannabis is legalised?
    I can't remember what the questions exactly were In the survey but was there any data gathered on the reason why a respondent opposes/supports the bill? I can't find the attached file now but I have read that a lot of people are basing their choice on existing biases on how they feel about cannabis (one way or the other) and not actually answer the question ask which is "should cannabis be regulated and controlled differently" rather than "should cannabis be legal". The article was based on surveys where they found a large proportion of against actually changed their mind when they were given clear information about what the proposed legislation actually meant.
    Of course take this reply with a large grain of salt as I can't seem to find the article I (at least think) I read!
  • What value do we put on a life?
    So reading up about the statistical value of life (such as the $4.37M stated for NZTA) it would seem like we are potentially using the concept out of context - it should not be use to assess how much is reasonable to spend to save a life, but how much you would have to spend to statistically save a life. These seem like the same but there is one key difference, since it is a statistical value you should not use that as the real value of the reasonable cost for any given situation as each unique set of circumstances will have it's own value of life - average out all of those unique circumstances and you will end up around $4M (for roardng related deaths in NZ) but there will still be a wide spread of actual reasonable values to spend to save a life.

    As an example of the cold truth of the use of the statistical value of life it is primarily used to eveluated policy options, for example with a finite budget approving projects with a higher cost per life saved (above the statistical value) could be considered unwise as there should be other projects where you could save more lives for the same money.
    Or for assessing if a policy will overall benefit society as a whole - i.e. (coldly) if a set of regulations will end up costing the economy less than the value of the lives it will save we should do it right... but should we if it will cost more even though it will save the same amount of lives?

    This also explains why there can be so much variability in the stated values for different agencies, countries, etc.
  • What value do we put on a life?
    So just to flip this around for some perspective, so far we have answers from $4.37M to $24.8M per life... so in the current situation how much should we be accepting as the fallout from the L4/L3 lockdown response?
    Taking Sweden as the example of "do nothing / do minimal" approach that are tappering off at just under 400 deaths per million, which would be approximately equivalent to 1920 deaths in NZ - so 1900 more than what we have achieved.
    So at the upper end of the value of human life we have is if it ends up costing the economy less than $47 billion to recover we "made the right choice"... (only $8.3 billion if we used the NZ value of life)

    I think the bigger issue is why do we need to put a specific monetary value on human life? Especially when it is usually just a stab in the dark until hindsight comes back to bite us, just ask Robert Eidschun and the Ford Motor Company. With the legislation built around reasonably practicable including taking into account if the reduction in risk is grossly disproportionate to the cost of that reduction, maybe there is a need but it is definitely not as simple as slapping a price tag on death.

    And that leads to the other issue - how do you take into account the multiple variables when it comes to valueing the societal cost of an activity - do you value the health of a someone in their mid-20s more than someone close to retirement, or how do you compare a agonising slow painful drawn out death from an occupational illness/desease to an immediate workplace fatality?

    The root of the issue I see is generally the real question is being assessed from the wrong direction - we are asking ourselves "what is the least that we are required to do?" rather than "what is the most we a capable of doing?"
  • Can workers refuse to declare health changes?
    I think you might have a bigger issue on your hands than just getting an employee to fill in a form, especially if they have had not issue with completing it in the past.
    Have you considered your employees current perspective - say they have been diagnosed with something that could affect the ability to work, might they now be concerned about what that means for their employment and their means to provide for themselves / their family. In that position I could (honestly) see someone using any means they had to keep working.

    Questions for you:
    What would be the real consequences if the employee was to have a health condition that would mean they were unfit/unsafe for work?
    And if there shouldn't be any real concern, does the employee fully understand this?
  • When is noise not a hazard?
    I would go as far as saying that noise is always a hazard, but the risk it poses can be vastly different.
    Remember that the accepted 85db is a time weighted average for an 8 hour shift - if your shifts are longer you should not rely on the <85dB threshold as being sufficient.
    Also the frequency of the noise affects how damaging it is to hearing at a given dB - the regs are based on the dB(A) weighting (weighted around typical critical human hearing frequencies), so make sure you are using a sound meter that will analysis the input against that weighting.
  • Covid: Mental Harm
    I'm so worried about all the things you mention, and dismayed that we're not hearing any mention of those numbers in the press briefings. We need to know so that we can all be aware and try help.Petra Hakansson

    The issue with the Government sharing this information is that it will conflict with their current focus of restrictions and mantra of "elimination of the virus". It will prompt more people to question if what we are doing is actually the best way forward, which then erodes their ability to control the masses into their intended direction.

    We can't seriously manage all of the outcomes that this pandemic is causing while we are fixated on a single outcome!
  • Pedestrian/Traffic Management Solution consultants
    Are you looking for just a company that can supply/install barriers & paint lines or are you wanting a review and improvements/design of your warehouse layout which includes physical pedestrian/traffic management safety solutions?
    If it is the second, I used to work with a guys who now runs a small logistics consultancy that may be able to help out, even just from a point of view of clearly defining the scope and assessment/development of the initial concept design which can lead to a better end result of the procurement / RFP process.

    His name is Richard Mahoney from Studio Logistic
  • Covid: S5 Hazard Identification

    I sure the act includes in the definition of reasonably practicable includes what the person concerned knows, or ought reasonably to know, about the hazard or risk; and the ways of eliminating or minimising the risk.
    Wouldn't only relying on NZ advice potentially lead you into a situation where you do not know what you ought to reasonably know?

    Also remember that reasonably practicable is based on the unique circumstances of each individual business - it is not a universal truth. The way I read @Andrew's post is an assessment of the real risk to his business and his employees (and other that are affected by their work), and then following the HoC to implement reasonably practicable controls. Is that not the basis of the Health and Safety at Work Act right there?