The Health and Safety at Work Act (HSW Act) comes into effect on 4 April 2016
The aim of the new Health and Safety at Work Act (HSW Act) is to reduce New Zealand’s workplace injury and death toll by 25 per cent by 2020. Our current track record is poor to say the least, with New Zealand workers twice as likely to be killed or suffer serious harm compared to Australia, and six times as likely as those in the UK. The Acts key emphasis is on everyone in the workplace being responsible for health and safety.
What do I need to do?
The new legislation shifts the focus from monitoring and recording health & safety incidents to proactively identifying and managing risks so everyone is safe. All business owners need to be able to produce the relevant documentation to demonstrate the following health & safety practices are performed their workplace (regardless of the size of the business):
- Identify health & safety hazards and risks, and take steps to prevent these from happening
- Make sure your health & safety policies are led by management, understood by all staff and reviewed regularly
- Hold regular training on health & safety matters
- Engage workers in health & safety matters that affect them
- Support all officers to get up to date with health & safety issues and key risk factors
- Report and monitor health & safety goals
- Regularly review any incidents
- Carry out frequent health & safety audits
The Health & Safety Tookit includes a manual with:
- A current signed health & safety policy
- A register of identified hazards including methods of assessment, elimination, isolation or minimisation and dates for regular review
- Incident, accident and near miss investigation and documentation processes
- How to manage workers who have an accident/illness involving time off work
- An emergency and response plan, first aid training and equipment
- Employee training in health & safety matters
- A safety induction process
And because our tookit is all about health & safety, we have included a template for your health & wellness policy. As an added bonus, our health & safety manual is mapped against the New Zealand Workplace Safety Discount, giving you the opportunity to save money on your ACC payments.
To comply with the new legislation, you business needs to consider the following:
- A current signed drug and alcohol policy
- A health & safety team which meets regularly and includes workers
- Recorded health & safety meetings with your workers
- A management system for hazardous materials
- A commitment to allow nominated workers the time to develop and improve health & safety at the workplace (this is vital if you are working in a high risk industry or if you have over 20 workers)
- A current training register recording dates and type of training provided to workers and regular visitors to the workplace
- A method of capturing, recording assessing and investigating safety audits, injuries, near misses, hazards and property damage
- Documented safe operating procedures for repetitive tasks (SOP’s)
- A library of operating manuals for equipment
- A traffic segregation plan
- Appropriate and current emergency signage
- A current building warrant of fitness including most recent compliance schedule
Save the GST on your Health & Safety toolkit
If you are a Warehouse Stationery BizRewards member, just type in your BizRewards number at checkout to get the exclusive price of $199 (inc gst) on the Health & Safety toolkit.