NZISM Supports SafePlus, the new health and safety toolkit

PRESS RELEASE – 30th November 2017

NZISM Supports SafePlus, the new health and safety toolkit

The New Zealand Institute of Safety Management (NZISM) is delighted to announce that it whole heartedly supports SafePlus, the health and safety tool kit made available to all businesses recently.

CEO, Selena Armstrong says the toolkit, a joint harm prevention initiative developed by WorkSafe, ACC and MBIE, is set to help lift health and safety performance in workplaces across all industry sectors. It is designed to dig deep into a business to assess worker practices, behaviours, culture and attitudes towards health and safety. It goes beyond a mere audit of the systems and documentation, to look at how well an organisation has implemented policies and procedures into practice.

Selena said NZISM is appreciative of the way the issue of accredited assessors, who are an essential part of the initiative, has been approached. An accreditation process ensures that the assessors have the right training and competency levels to deliver a behavioural assessment using the toolkit.

Prospective assessors need to pass an evaluation of their experience, qualifications and references. They then have a face to face interview that will assess them against the SafePlus competencies. Once this stage is complete, the candidates are required to undergo a training course in the Safe Plus ten performance requirements, as well as using a behavioural and evaluative assessment approach.

Once they pass the training assessment, they will be accredited to use the toolkit for business. All accredited assessors names are available on the WorkSafe web site for businesses to easily identify assessors when needed. The assessors that are recognised health and safety professonals, and have reached the requirements of their membership body are then able to apply to be registered on the HASANZ register.

Selena stated that NZISM is confident that business will benefit from such an assessment, which will greatly improve overall health and safety performance.

Background:

NZISM is the primary membership organisation for health and safety practitioners in New Zealand. It has over 1600 members in 11 branches working across all sectors of the economy. Its mission is to build quality health and safety practitioners and promote industry excellence.
cFormed in 1972, NZISM has national coverage with an extensive branch network, providing quality development and networking opportunities to its members and those interested in the field of occupational health and safety.

NZISM has recently developed an internationally benchmarked accreditation scheme for its members to enable them to demonstrate their capabilities and to enable business to make more informed choices about those it seeks to engage.

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