Outcome 1: Government Leadership and Practices

Government’s leadership role involves promoting a high level of workplace health and safety performance in New Zealand. The government is able to set expectations, provide information and support to workplaces, and ensure that regulatory standards are achieved. It can also lead by example, through having excellent health and safety practices in its own workplaces and in its purchasing policies for goods and services.

An important part of this outcome is that government agencies will collaborate with one another and co-ordinate their intervention activities. They will also work effectively with workplaces, central employer and union organisations, employer and industry associations, trade unions, and other key stakeholders. This will ensure that government resources are used to best effect and help reduce compliance costs to business.

Objectives and actions

Objective 1a: Set high government expectations for workplace health and safety in New Zealand and ensure that regulatory standards are achieved

Actions

1. Create an effective governance arrangement, including a tripartite body, to lead and oversee the implementation and future revision of the Strategy.
2. Promote the Strategy and encourage key stakeholders to build it into their strategic and business planning processes.
3. Develop performance indicators and targets for workplace health and safety performance at a national level, and track progress against these using improved measurement systems.
4. Develop, review, align and evaluate standards and guidance (such as codes of practice and guidelines) within the legislative frameworks of the HSE Act and the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act (HSNO) 1996, so they are clear, relevant, and effective.
5. Ensure that practical information and support services are available to help workplaces achieve and surpass standards required under the HSE Act and the HSNO Act.
6. Ensure that enforcement activities (such as audits, inspections, investigations and prosecutions) under the HSE Act, and the HSNO Act in places of work, are rigorous, fair and adequately resourced.
7. Improve the effectiveness and efficiency of enforcement activities and ensure that their focus includes the Strategy’s national priorities (such as airborne substances and workplace vehicles).

Objective 1b: Provide leadership in workplace health and safety through the government’s roles as employer and purchaser

Actions

1. Establish performance expectations for government agencies (as employers) in relation to workplace health and safety practices.
2. Increase government agency participation in ACC incentive programmes.
3. Provide practical guidance to improve government reporting (as an employer) in relation to workplace health and safety.
4. Stocktake workplace health and safety practices in both the central and local government sectors, to encourage best practice and monitor progress.
5. Review government purchasing and contracting guidelines and practices, to promote workplace health and safety within a fair and effective trading environment.

Objective 1c: Improve co-ordination and alignment of government agency roles and activities

Actions

1. Clarify and, where appropriate, realign the roles and responsibilities of government agencies with workplace health and safety responsibilities, and strengthen interagency relationships at both regional and national levels.
2. Increase joint planning by government agencies to ensure better co-ordination and alignment of work programmes.
3. Improve collaboration between agencies to get the best possible alignment between ACC incentive programmes and the HSE legislative framework.
4. Improve agency co-ordination for the management of hazardous substances in workplaces.
5. Co-ordinate government investment in workplace health and safety research and set research priorities that are aligned with this Strategy.
6. Develop more effective processes for sharing data and information between government agencies.

Outcome 2: Preventive Workplace Cultures

A preventive workplace culture is a shared set of values, beliefs, attitudes, and ways of behaving that supports the prevention of harm to people at work. It emphasises the proactive management of hazards to eliminate them wherever practicable - and, if this is not possible, it then focuses on isolating and minimising the hazards.

Workplaces with preventive cultures have a strong management commitment to health and safety, effective health and safety management systems, involvement of workers and their unions, communications based on good faith, and a willingness to learn from past mistakes. Preventive cultures are ones where health and safety is integrated into everyday business practice. It is not an optional ‘add on’.

Objectives and actions

Objective 2a: Increase the recognition among business owners, directors and senior managers that health and safety benefits their business

Actions

1. Review the literature and conduct research into the business benefits of a preventive approach to workplace health and safety.
2. Develop and promote practical tools to help workplaces identify and quantify business benefits.
3. Communicate the benefits of workplace health and safety to business owners, directors and senior managers through industry networks and business leaders.
4. Promote more extensive reporting of health and safety performance in public documents (such as annual reports), to enable benchmarking and encourage best practice.

Objective 2b: Increase the commitment and capability of managers to systematically and effectively manage workplace health and safety

Actions

1. Provide practical guidance and tools to support the systematic and effective management of health and safety.
2. Build the capability of managers to manage effectively health and safety systems, particularly in small businesses and high-risk industries.
3. Raise managers’ awareness about the benefits of workplace health and safety, and about employers’ legal obligations to provide safe working environments.
4. Increase the reach and effectiveness of ACC incentive programmes.
5. Promote the systematic and effective management of health and safety through industry accreditation programmes and industry training programmes.
6. Acknowledge excellence in health and safety management through recognition schemes and awards.

Objective 2c: Ensure that workers participate effectively in processes for improving workplace health and safety

Actions

1. Raise awareness about the benefits of employee participation, and also about employers’ legal obligations to involve workers in workplace health and safety.
2. Provide practical guidance for workplaces on employee-participation systems and practices to support effective involvement of workers in health and safety matters.
3. Recognise the role that health and safety representatives play in the workplace, and provide them with support, resources, and practical tools.
4. Build the capability of health and safety representatives through training.
5. Promote and enforce legal requirements relating to employee-participation systems.

Outcome 3: Industry Leadership and Community Engagement

Other workplaces, trade unions, employer organisations, industry associations, and training organisations are the linchpins for helping individual workplaces improve their health and safety. They can often work together in p roviding advice, information, industry standards, training programmes, influential role models, and best-practice examples.

Community engagement is also an important part of this outcome - with greater community awareness and concern about health and safety issues creating a positive and supportive climate for improvements in workplace health and safety. This can be a two-way flow of influence, as workplace health and safety issues can also have a positive effect on community and recreational safety practices.

Objectives and actions

Objective 3a: Develop and implement industry-led initiatives to improve workplace health and safety

Actions

1. Create and strengthen industry health-and-safety groups and business/union partnerships as a means of directing and co-ordinating industry initiatives.
2. Provide more effective government support for industry-led initiatives.
3. Develop and implement industry strategies and plans aligned to the Strategy.
4. Produce and promote industry-specific standards and guidance material for significant health and safety issues.
5. Use industry networks to spread best-practice information and examples.
6. Develop and modify industry programmes for training and accreditation, to achieve an increased focus on health and safety.
7. Build the evidence base for industry-led initiatives through investment in research and development.
8. Strengthen the competency of occupational safety and health professionals and practitioners through specialised education and training, and certification and professional development programmes.

Objective 3b: Encourage and enable industry and community leaders to promote workplace health and safety to their networks and communities

Actions

1. Identify industry and community leaders to act as champions or spokespersons for improved workplace health and safety.
2. Support industry and community leaders by providing them with information and communication resources that will be relevant to their networks and communities.
3. Establish and provide forums in which industry and community leaders can communicate messages about health and safety to their networks and communities.
4. Evaluate the effectiveness of the promotional activities carried out by industry and community leaders.

Objective 3c: Raise awareness and understanding of workplace health and safety in the wider community

Actions

1. Raise the profile of workplace health and safety as an issue of public importance, by drawing attention to the impact of work-related disease and injury on individuals, families/whānau and businesses.
2. Increase awareness and understanding of specific workplace health and safety issues in the wider community, through public awareness and education programmes.
3. Promote the development of personal skills in workplace health and safety within the wider community through school-based education in health and safety.
4. Make links between workplace health and safety and community-based injury prevention and safety initiatives.

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