Newsletter: February ’21 Newsletter

Growing up in middle-class New Zealand it did not take long to realise what the term Godzone was all about. The phrase originated in the works of Poet Thomas Bracken, who described his adopted homeland as “God of nations” in the 1876 poem that would become the national anthem and in 1890 he wrote an ode to Aotearoa entitled God’s Own Country.

To me, Godzone refers to both the natural beauty of the New Zealand Landscape, and the general character of New Zealanders, being essentially humble, resilient, and able to build jet boats and electron rockets out of number 8 wire.  And here 130 years later, at the start of 2021, it is easy to look at the rest of the world and reinforce the notion that we in New Zealand are especially blessed.

But it does not take too much rope to shatter this myth. Looking back on my youth it is easy to spot the inherent racism, sexism, homophobia, and other injustices that permeated through the New Zealand Culture. What I realise now, is that for a proportion of New Zealanders, this place was different. They did not feel safe, supported, or given the opportunities to experience what a Godzone was. And all this happened in full view of those proclaiming the faith.

The role of society is to provide safety, support, and opportunities for personal growth.  And if this sounds familiar, it is probably because it would make a good job description for a Health and Safety Manager or Representative. The challenge for us in the industry is to make our workplaces feel like a Godzone. That employees feel safe, are encouraged to actively participate in health and safety decisions and given opportunities to grow their knowledge and understanding.

The first step in providing safety and wellbeing for others is in ensuring we are looking after ourselves. Firefighters on scrub fires talk about always having one foot in the black, which the area already burnt, so if the wind changes suddenly they have a safe place to retreat to. For Health and Safety professionals having one foot in the black means being in a good position physically and emotionally to do our jobs well.  The first Charter workshop this year is all about this concept.

“Looking after ourselves, looking after others” is taking place on Tuesday 23^rd of February, and features a variety of techniques for increased personal and professional wellbeing. Registration details can be found in this newsletter.

2021 offers the opportunity for a re-set about how we go about our daily business, and already most of us have experienced some changes. Maybe the time has come to re-set Godzone as an aspirational journey, rather than a destination we have already arrived at.

Paul Duggan

General Manager

A New Investigation Approach

Throughout my career in health and safety I have come across many different incident investigation techniques. These include 5 Whys, Bowtie, Tap Root, Fishbone, Fault Tree and Icam investigations. The success of which varies depending on the knowledge and skill of the investigators, the information the parties involved want to share and the organisations desired outcome.

Some investigation techniques focus on a root cause or focus on a wider range of causes but these tend to focus on failures or absence of defences. Also many investigations lack meaningful actions that provide a long term solution to the issue. How many organisations have had multiple reoccurrences of incidents they have investigated?

In my experience many of the investigations are carried out by Managers who are also charged with deciding on the corrective actions. Input from the affected parties is usually in the form of an interview. Formal interview styles can prove a barrier to understanding the root causes from staff being concerned about blame being apportioned.

Over the past year I have been involved in facilitating learning teams which is one of the new emerging approaches to investigation techniques that focus more on improving health and safety long term but with the input and buy in from the operational staff.

Learning teams bring together a group of people that either have some involvement in the incident or some knowledge around the work that contributes to the process. Rather than focusing on the failures in the process such as human error or the absence of defences the learning team focuses on work as planned vs work as done. I have found this quite the eye opener comparing the reality of a changing environment against the processes and procedures. From experience the more operational staff involved in the learning team the better the outcomes.

The process of facilitating the learning teams has provided some valuable time working with the operational staff in a proactive way and has allowed them to be the authors of the improvement ideas and play a part in implementing the ideas.

In February 2020 at a Charter Event Tania Palmer from Meridian Energy shared with us her experiences with introducing learning teams to Contact Energy and the positive impact that this had on the health and safety culture within the organisation.

Together with Worksafe, Contact Energy have published a case study along with guidelines for a successful learning team so I encourage you all to have a look and try the process yourself.

If we can challenge the traditional approaches to investigations and process reviews we stand the chance to improve employee engagement, buy in to health and safety and much improved ownership of health and safety.

Justine Ward

Downer Senior HSE Advisor & CSC Board Member

The first Charter Health and Safety Leadership Group workshop for 2021 is “Looking after ourselves, Looking after others”.

Health and Safety professionals and representatives spend a lot of their time looking out for others, so how can we best look after ourselves to enable us to do our jobs more effectively.

This interactive workshop will look at a few key things we can all do to make our work and lives less stressful, more satisfied, and empowered.

Facilitated by Marina Shearer, we will take a look at; 

• Trajectory values of your life.
• Understand the Johari window through a wellbeing lens (a technique that aims to help people understand their emotional and physical relationship with self and others, to improve individual and team performance.
• RAIN – the mindfulness principle. (Recognise, Allow, Investigate & non-identification.
• WELL life – weight, exercise, lungs and liver. 
• What you can measure you can manage. 

The 2 workshops are limited to 30 people each (you only need to register for one)

Tuesday, 23rd February 2021.  Trade Union Centre, 68 Langdons Road.

Workshop 1: 8am – 9.30am

Workshop 2: 10.30 – 12noon

Advisian and RiskNZ, supported by the Canterbury Safety Charter, bring you 3 workshops in one day!

Standards Australia and New Zealand have recently launched two new publications to help organisations better manage risk:

• AS/NZS 5050: Managing Disruption Related Risk (2020) – interim standard
• AS HB 4361: Risk management guidelines – Companion to AS ISO 31000:2018, Part 1: Boards and Executives handbook

RiskNZ and Advisian are delighted to launch a risk workshop series for 2021. In this series, there are 2 workshops designed to help strengthen organisational resilience and an free 1-hour open discussion on Reduced OPEX risk management. 

Workshop 1 supports risk practitioners develop better practice around managing disruption related risk. 

Free Workshop with the Professional Services Working Group of the Canterbury Safety Charter. The session will discuss reduced OPEX risk management costs with safe and sustainable design. It will feature examples of CAPEX opportunities to reduce OPEX costs through eliminating or modifying risks that require expensive controls and developing risk controls that meet multiple (including non-safety) objectives.. 

Workshop 2 is aimed at senior executives and board directors helps strengthens the effective understanding and governance of a portfolio of risk responsibilities.

Date: Thursday 18 March 2021
Time: 9:00am – 12pm | 12:30 – 1:30pm | 2.00 – 4:000pm
Venue: Westpac The Terrace, Level 4 81 Cashel St, Christchurch
Ticket pricing: RiskNZ members $275 ex / Non-members $350 ex per workshop. 
Risk NZ members $400 ex / Non-members $520 ex * both workshops *  
(includes 3 months RiskNZ membership)

Workshops are also being held in Auckland and Wellington. 

Tuesday, 13 April 2021

5.30pm onwards

An event for SME’s