Zero Harm in the Workplace

About

Achieving a Zero Harm workplace is a goal which we should all be striving towards. According to the Department of Labour, in 2010 seventy-five workers were killed at work and there were 5,945 cases of serious harm at an estimated social and economic cost of $16 billion.

The Zero Harm in the Workplace conference is your perfect opportunity to hear how health and safety is being managed in some of NZ’s most respected organisations. Held in both Auckland and Wellington, this conference will provide you an opportunity to network with your peers and hear from leading health and safety experts at a location which is convenient for you.

Featuring this year:

  •     Group Exercise: Keeping your staff safe in an emergency
  •     Mini Workshop: Avoiding H&S fatigue in the workplace
  •     Mini Workshop: Improving communication of H&S goals across the company
  •     Roundtables: Drugs & alcohol; Workplace safety cultures; Stress & Fatigue


Customise your learning experience with a separately bookable post conference Masterclass on “Extending the Accident Investigation Process” with Peter Newsome.

Registration Specials

Train your team with the special 2 for 1 discount and if you register and pay before Wednesday 8th February 2012, you save up to $300 with our Early Bird deal.

Masterclass

Full Day Masterclass | Extending the Accident Investigation Process

3 March 2012, Crowne Plaza, Auckland  |  9.00am – 4.30pm
29 March 2012, Amora Hotel, Wellington  |  9.00am – 4.30pm

Some of the core goals of the accident investigation process are to identify why the accident happened, identify both new and existing hazards and put processes in place to ensure the risks to employee safety are minimised. In this full day Masterclass you will learn to extend the accident investigation process from a step-by-step requirement into a proactive approach to preventing further injury in the workplace.

Masterclass attendees will cover:

  • Understanding standard procedures in the accident investigation process
  • Effective investigation and interviewing techniques
  • Dealing with external parties during the investigation
  • Handling the outcome of the investigation
  • Creating a supportive and “blame-free” environment
  • Analysing workplace accident history – does a pattern exist? If so what can be done about it?
  • Using lessons learnt to improve health and safety processes and to become proactive with employees

Facilitated by Peter Newsome, Director, Ironclad Safety

Peter Newsome has been practising Health and Safety and specialising in Injury Prevention since 2001. Prior to that Peter spent 22 years as a Police Officer, 12 years in uniform on the front line and 10 more years investigating serious crime as a Detective and Intelligence Analyst. Peters uses his years of investigative training to look at the facts as facts and to provide evidence based solutions.

Agenda

Agenda: Day 1

8:30am

Registration and coffee

9:00am

Opening remarks from the Chair

Auckland: John Beattie, Executive General Manager Zero Harm & Insurance, Downer New Zealand Limited
Wellington: Chris Roberts, Corporate Affairs Manager, New Zealand Oil & Gas Ltd


9:10am

DOL Address: Harm reduction programmes

Auckland: Jason Papuni, Team Leader - Auckland, Department of Labour Workplace Group
Wellington: Marcus Nalter, Health & Safety Inspector, Department of Labour

9:55am

WHO Initiative: A comprehensive approach to influence health and wellness in the workplace

The World Health Organisation’s initiative ‘Healthy Workplaces’ has a holistic approach to managing health, safety and wellness in the working environment, covering hazard identification through to the four avenues of influence: Physical Work environment, Psychosocial work environment, Personal health resources and Enterprise community involvement.
• Achieving zero harm through assessing and emphasising all four avenues
• The benefits of holistic approach to NZ workplace
• The impact of diverse wellness programmes on the safety culture

Eta Lilic, Health & Safety and Wellness Manager, BNZ
In March 2011 Eta was invited to the WHO International Consultation on Healthy Workplace and along with 63 others worldwide, Eta become a WHO Healthy Workplaces consultant.

10:40am

Morning Tea

11:00am

Group Exercise: Keeping your staff safe in an emergency

New Zealand organisations are currently very aware of the need to have a comprehensive emergency and disaster preparation plan. This group exercise will help you plan to ensure the total safety of your workforce in the event of unexpected worst case scenarios.
• Examples and review of emergency and contingency plans
• How to ensure worker safety in emergency planning - practical steps you can take
• Discussion: Role and responsibilities of the OHS manager on the day

Sandra Pedersen, Director, Kestrel Group

12:00pm

Roundtables

Roundtables allow you to break into smaller groups to discuss the topic that interests you the most. Gain insight and advice by sharing your experiences with peers and experts.

12:00pm

Roundtable 1: Managing Drug and Alcohol Abuse in your organisation

• Do you have a drugs and alcohol management process in place?
• How do you test for illicit substances?
• How have you approached managing “legal highs” in your workplace?

Auckland: Kirk Hardy, CEO, NZDDA
Wellington: Jason Whatuira, General Manager, NZDDA

12:00pm

Roundtable 2: How do you maintain and improve upon workplace safety culture?

• Do you have shop-level health and safety champions in place?
• How have you identified where a culture shift is needed?
• What challenges have you encountered promoting a workplace safety culture?

Jen Breed, Working Wisdom

12:00pm

Roundtable 3: How can you prevent stress and fatigue within your workforce?

• How do you recognise and manage stress and fatigue?
• What does a healthy workplace mean to you?
• Do you have any systems in place to combat the effects?
• Have you noticed key precursors to stress and fatigue?

Auckland: Janice Riegen, Clinical Nurse Specialist – Occupational Health and Safety, Waitemata DHB
Wellington: Maeve Neilson, HSSE Southern, NZ Bus Ltd

12:45pm

Lunch

1:45pm

Mini Workshop: Avoiding H&S fatigue in the workplace (Mini Workshop)

Employees can be bombarded with health and safety from many different angles yet still not take it seriously. In this interactive and hands-on workshop, delegates will discover how to avoid employees losing interest in health and safety initiatives. Delegates will learn how to:
• Focus on the positive aspects of workplace health and safety
• How can you tell if employees are suffering from information overload?
• Engage employee’s interest in workplace health and safety and making it stick

Jen Breed, Manager, Working Wisdom

3:15pm

Afternoon Tea

3.30pm

Case Study: Preventing injury in high-risk situations (Case Study)

How can an organisation prevent accidents in high-risk situation? Does special focus need to be paid to environmental factors? Carl Stent will discuss the procedures in place at Fulton Hogan and what is done to minimise employee danger.
• Following pre-set protocols
• Making employee safety a priority despite time constraints

Carl Stent, National Manager – Safety & Wellbeing, Fulton Hogan

4.15pm

Networking Drinks

Agenda: Day 2

9:00am

Welcome back from the Chair

9:05am

From the Courts: Reviewing recent health and safety cases

• Examining recent prosecutions under Health and Safety law
• The impact of Bull and Speedy v Utumapu HC PMN CIV - 2011
• Current areas of focus for the Department of Labour
• Are penalties effective and reflecting the breach?

Auckland: Sarah-Lee Stead, Associate, Kensington Swan
Wellington: Rachel Burt, Senior Associate, Kensington Swan

9:50am

Looking at human and organisational factor in accidents

Many organisations aspire to be ‘zero harm’ workplaces, where all injuries are preventable. Achieving this goal requires an understanding of the human contribution (i.e., successes and failures) in relation to performance shaping factors such as the task, equipment, procedures, environment, and organisation.
· Review organising frameworks for better understanding (i) why people sometimes do seemingly inexplicable things and what can be done about it; and (ii) the barriers and defences that can protect “imperfect people operating within imperfect organisations”.
· Explore human and organisational fallibility and the importance of taking a systems approach in addressing this fallibility.
· Review psychological processes that influence the attribution of human success and failure.

Hillary Bennett, Director, Leading Safety

10:35am

Morning Tea

10:55am

Case Study: Getting your workforce back on its feet (Case Study)

A fast return to work is a key component of successful rehabilitation and a step towards full physical and psychological recovery. Over the past 4 years NZ Post has achieved a 45% reduction in injury rate, a 75% reduction in Lost Time Injury Rate and a 70% reduction in days lost due to injury. This has lead to a 35% reduction in Partnership Programme rehabilitation costs.
• Keeping your employees working
• Assessing capability to perform tasks
• Providing flexibility to ensure complete rehabilitation
• Make a fast return to work business as usual

Auckland: Andy Inder, Head of Safety and Wellbeing, NZ Post Group
Wellington: Marty Buckley, Safety and Wellbeing Consultant, NZ Post Group

11:40am

Making practice match paper

A Zero Harm workplace can only be effective if everyone in the organisation follows protocol. This includes contractors and site visitors as well as employees. You can protect yourself from unnecessary workplace incidents by ensuring that what is written down in the health and safety plan is followed through.
• Examples where plans have not matched practice
• Necessity of a thorough audit process

Hamish Brown, Managing Director, Concordia
Author of the Workplace Audit and Managing Director of Concordia, Hamish specialises in measurement and improvement of safety culture to reduce workplace fatalities and serious harm accidents.

12:25pm

Lunch

1:25pm

Mini Workshop: Improving communication of H&S goals across the company (Mini Workshop)

Communicating Zero Harm goals and initiatives company-wide can be a difficult task, and can become infinitely harder when barriers such as literacy concerns and employee apathy are present.
• Improving cross cultural communication
• Overcoming literacy barriers
• Identifying your communication vessels and analysing their effectiveness
• Communications alone are not enough – what else can be done to support it?

Auckland: Presenter to be confirmed
Wellington: Tim Corbett, Director, Thinkspace

2:45pm

Afternoon Tea

3:05pm

The critical importance of individual “risk competence” in achieving Zero Harm

Ultimately, safety practice won’t necessarily be improved through appointing more safety personnel, writing more standards or undertaking more audits. Developing an understanding of risk-taking behaviour, and then working with this to improve individual decision-making is the answer. Risk Competence is dependent on the appropriate attitude, behaviour, and skills. We will examine this interface in some detail and provide delegates with a number of practical guidelines for implementation.

Eric Holliday, Independent Safety Consultant

3:50pm

Understanding the accident investigation process

After an incident it is vital to ensure the possibility for reoccurrence is limited and that a near miss doesn’t turn into a full incident.
• Importance of fully investigating any incident
• Managing the risk and providing steps and processes to minimise future incidents
• Creating a “blame-free” culture

Peter Newsome, Director, Ironclad Safety

4:35pm

Closing remarks from the Chair & end of conference

Sponsors/Partners

Interested in sponsorship?

There are some exclusive opportunities to promote your company, and its products and services, at this leading event. Contact the sponsorship team below to request a prospectus or discuss the options, or view more about event sponsorship.