Safety starts with culture

What have you done to build a health and safety culture in your business?

Firm: A E S Builders Ltd

Principal: Austin Simmonds

Location: Whangaparaoa

Staff: 1

One of the biggest things for me has been becoming a HazardCo member. The kits and advice they provide, such as guides for site inductions and hazard identification booklets, make health and safety a lot simpler.

They provide a site pack for every job we do. The packs include a customised safety sign to stick on your site entrance. Before the job starts, a HazardCo officer goes through all the hazards with you that may be on the site and puts them on your sign.   

Toolbox talks are also useful. I run them as new hazards come to light, maybe when scaffolding goes up or when we’ve got cranes or hi-abs operating on site – I just address issues as they come up. I also make sure that my workers have all the safety gear they need, such as hi-vis work clothing, gloves and goggles.

None of my staff have ever approached me with any issues where they felt unsafe, but I believe the culture is such that if they wanted to they would be comfortable doing so.

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Firm: Oriel

Principal: Dave Sidaway

Location: Wellington

Staff: 3

With the introduction of the new health and safety legislation, we went through a review of all our safety plans and updated them where appropriate. I think in general it’s also made us a lot more safety conscious.

We came up with a different programme for our site-specific safety plans and set up more generic templates to help us get set up for future jobs. 

At the start of every day, we also have a chat about what we’re going to be doing and what the potential hazards are. If anything has changed on site, we’ll discuss how those changes might affect the job as well. They’re open-table discussions, so if anyone has any concerns with anything they’re able to raise them and we can discuss them as a group.

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Firm: Derek Direen Building Ltd

Principal: Derek Direen

Location: Wanaka

Staff: 5

Many changes have been made in our business regarding health and safety recently, including the introduction of site-specific safety plan documents.

However, the biggest change has been educating everyone working on our sites and making them aware of the immediate hazards that surround us on a day-to-day basis.

More importantly, we’ve put procedures in place to minimise any risk that could potentially lead to accidents.

We also openly discuss health and safety issues on our jobs; this keeps everyone actively thinking about the potential risks as we go about our daily tasks.

I believe the new regulations regarding falling from height, including handrails, edge protection, and fall nets, has been well received by pretty much everyone involved in our industry. The regulations have made all our jobs not only safer, but easier.

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Now have your say…

What is the best piece of advice you’ve been given and how it has helped your business?

Answer this question to enter our quarterly prize draw! Email your answer with your full name, contact phone number, company name, number of full-time staff and the city or town in which you’re based to editor@pmundersconstruction.co.nz. All responses must be submitted by 25 September 2016. The answers to this question will be published in Under Construction November 2016.