New Workplace Safety Programme Paying Off

MEDIA RELEASE for Hospitality Industry

4 October 2007

New Workplace Safety Programme Paying Off For Hospitality Industry

New Zealand’s hospitality sector has a prime opportunity to ramp up its health and safety management to reduce workplace injuries and, ultimately, save itself money.

ACC has developed “PrACCtical”, a course of seven workshops designed to improve health and safety management, and is trialling it within the hospitality industry.

Still in its pilot phase, the training programme was launched last month [September 4th] with 15 McDonald’s restaurant managers and assistant managers from South Auckland trialling the course’s first workshop.

The programme is now also being offered to hotel managers.

ACC’s Hospitality Programme Manager Jennifer O'Loughlin said generally the hospitality industry had quite a high rate of injuries, making it a good industry to pilot the scheme. “Restaurants can be full of hazards – whether it’s hot cookers, slippery floors, sharp knives or excessive noise. And since most restaurants are so busy, employers may feel they don’t have time to manage those hazards properly.

“We want people to stay safe at work so they can go home at the end of the day. The PrACCtical programme teaches managers – particularly those from small and medium businesses – how they can help achieve that by having effective hazard and emergency management, employment practices, incident investigations and much more,” Ms O’Loughlin said.

McDonald’s Director of Human Resources Evelyn Gates said the company had stringent health and safety processes, and took its responsibility to provide safe work environments very seriously. “McDonald’s employs around 6000 people across New Zealand and we have always given priority to health and safety for both our crew and customers. The PrACCtical course has provided our managers with additional skills to handle safety at work and we think that’s a great outcome.”

In addition to the pilot, McDonald's recently [October 4th] extended its involvement with the scheme, with a further 50 managers trained by ACC.

Jennifer O’Loughlin said the PrACCtical programme is aimed at keeping workers safe on the job, but it can also help businesses financially. “Injuries cost a business dearly, especially in time lost when valuable staff are off sick and time spent training replacement staff. Anything a business – especially a small or medium sized one – can do to keep their staff safe will pay off,” she said.

ENDS

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