Health & Safety Reforms are Coming!
The New Zealand government, led by Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden made an announcement last week about work it is doing in the health and safety space. They are expecting to progress through to legislative changes by the end of this year.
Main Points of the Reforms at this stage are:
- The need for better clarification between governance and operational management: The reforms intend to clarify that daily health and safety management will be the responsibility of managers, allowing directors and boards to focus on overarching governance and strategic oversight. This move is intended to enhance the effectiveness of health and safety measures within businesses.
- Reduction of red tape: For small low risk businesses this is expected to be about simplifying requirements so efforts can be focussed on managing critical risks and providing basic facilities like first aid and emergency plans.
- Reduction in compliance costs: The reforms aim to reduce the extent of reporting requirements for significant events like serious injuries or deaths to help with cost management.
While this work progresses, our encouragement is to keep your health and safety systems maintained to current standards. This time of year can be useful for making sure your hazard registers and procedures are up to date and that all your basics like signage, first aid kits and emergency controls have been checked.
From an employment / HR perspective it’s a good time to be checking your pre-employment processes / checks for health and safety considerations, that emergency contacts are up to date and any required certifications such as first aid / drivers licences/endorsements and any vaccinations are current.
Contact the Grow HR team if you need any help checking what health and safety considerations should be factored into your people practices.