Workforce insights programme: employers & workers

FISC recently received a report from Worksafe – Workforce Insights Programme: Employers and Workers. WorkSafe commissioned a series of research reports on workers and employers to help track health and safety performance over time.

The employers and workers report examines employer health and safety maturity; worker engagement, participation, and representation; and the impact of workplace safety culture.

Some of the Key findings were:

The survey shows overall improvements in New Zealand’s work health and safety cultures, compared to 2023.

• More workplaces now have shared responsibility for health and safety with workers.
• Employers and workers report more formal worker engagement processes.
• 74% of the workers surveyed are satisfied with how employers respond to health and safety issues when raised.
• Both employers and workers are also getting better at health and safety training and education.
• While risk management processes are common, there are opportunities to address significant gaps.
• 77% of employers made changes in the last 12 months to improve health and safety.

Forestry employers are most likely to prioritise health and safety, and implement robust practices.

You can see this report here – it has many encouraging insights about forestry and other industries. Against most of the research elements, forestry is making positive improvements, but there is still plenty of headroom to improve.

I was reflecting on this report and couldn’t help but note our current transition to the new ACoP as a tangible example of how our work practices can evolve. One of the most significant changes in the new ACoP is the shift in tone. The new ACoP is less prescriptive. It has a strong focus on identification of hazards and risks, assessment of those risks and development, implementation and monitoring of controls.

This approach provides latitude for continuous improvement. Contractors and others should see this as encouragement to monitor and evolve their practices, so long as they meet or exceed the ACoP standard.

Thinking about both the report and the how the sector has responded to the new ACoP, one can’t help but think about how we are evolving as an industry.

There is a simple framework called the Bradley Curve, it was developed to assess the stages of maturity of a safety culture. Simply, the stages are:

• Stage 1 Reactive: Safety efforts are reactive and minimal and accidents are common.
• Stage 2 Dependent: Compliance driven, follow the rules to avoid punishment. 
• Stage 3 Independent: Everybody takes personal responsibility for safety. A pro-active approach to risk mitigation.
• Stage 4 Interdependent: A strong safety culture built on collaboration and communication. Strong continuous improvement and employees care for their own and other’s safety.

This framework is applied to a single organisation, but if you were to consider the sector as a whole, where do you think we would sit on the curve? Are we maturing as a sector?

We certainly see evidence of strong compliance cultures, which is not surprising given our poor safety performance prior to the independent review. However, we also see higher levels of engagement and investment in continuous improvement and innovation.

I see a strong aspiration that the sector wants to be better, and an understanding that if we are to move to higher levels of safety culture, we need to do this together – a rising tide lifts all waka.

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Source: Safetree / FISC 
Image credit: WorkSafe NZ