Articles

Machine Guarding

It's frustrating to continually read about court cases where the lack of guarding has led to horrific injuries. Too often these result in another hard-working family man or woman having to suffer the effects for the rest of his or her lives. Why? Is it because someone never took or allowed the...

Business Planning – planning for the next big idea!

Spotted - an advert on TVNZ 1 for gardening gloves with a difference - some clever person had come up with idea of attaching moulded claws to one of the gloves for digging in the garden, to assist with planting - how clever! Consider this: How often do we see something...

Working with Chemicals Safely

The prosecution of a Tauranga mussel processing company in 2018 for an industrial accident must certainly make all businesses  - using chemicals in any part of their operations - sit up and take note. When you read the following, the incident could easily have been avoided with a few practical and...

The Consequences of Getting Health and Safety Wrong

This is a warning to all businesses after a 2018 High Court judgement that has given guidelines to sentence employers who fail to protect the health and safety of workers. The judgement stems from the 2015 Health and Safety at Work Act and gives guidelines to sentencing people found guilty under...

Has health and safety gone mad?

Has red tape bureaucracy been taken to the extreme? Spotted - at a DOC hut recently.  Three signs surrounding the one and only door to the hut. “In case of fire, go outside and call out FIRE, FIRE, FIRE to the others in the hut"...

Using a Yellow Card System

One of the key changes to the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 was the requirement that businesses must involve their employees in health and safety. I have made the comment before, but it is an indictment on New Zealand businesses when legislation must be enacted that requires employers to...

Working on the right contracts

Are you chasing the great white whale? If you are a contractor or a self-employed tradesman, and your business is a one-man band or small to medium business (SME), this parallel to business is something to think about. In Herman Melville's fictional novel Moby Dick, Captain Ahab, the monomaniacal captain, was obsessed...

Is Health and Safety Strangling Your Business?

Have you read about the Opua dog swimming races? Is this just another case of red tape, blue-tape or bureaucracy gone raving mad? I contacted the principal of Opua School and gave him a few health and safety pointers - but what was interesting was his comments about leaving the UK, to...

The Value of Institutional Knowledge

With the current cost-cutting and reduction of staff in the public services, this is a topic (that if not considered) could have delivery consequences for public services. Add to this, the issue that New Zealand is in a recession, and many companies are also downsizing and reducing staff. How many businesses...

Challenging the Status Quo

How often do you or your management team challenge the status quo to see if there is a better and smarter way to improve your work methods, to improve quality, safety, and to increase your profit? There is an adage that states “If you look after the pennies, the pounds will...