Emergencies and natural disasters can happen any time. Although you can’t predict when they will happen, you can take actions to make your business more prepared.
Do you and your workers know what to do if a disaster strikes?
An emergency plan is a health and safety requirement necessary for keeping everyone safe, and not having one is a big risk for your business and your workers.
Your emergency plan should include the following:
What to consider when making an emergency plan:
When working out your emergency plan, you must take into account:
Maintaining and testing emergency plans:
A well-maintained emergency plan should be reviewed and updated when:
Testing your emergency plan is important to ensure it works:
Worker Engagement
Involve workers in emergency planning and decisions. All workers should know who is responsible for activating and coordinating emergency procedures and what they must do to keep themselves and others safe in an emergency.
First Aid Kits and Fire Extinguishers
Having first aid kits and fire extinguishers readily available ensures that workers can quickly address emergencies, potentially saving lives and preventing extensive property damage.
Sort your safety with an Emergency Box for your work vehicle or fixed to your wall at your site! Our Emergency Boxes are designed to provide the essentials for an emergency situation in all types of workplaces.
Not only will they help to keep health and safety front and centre but having a first aid kit, fire extinguisher, air horn, and emergency plan right at your fingertips will keep you covered in case of any unexpected incidents.
To order, call us on 0800 555 339 or email info@hazardco.com.
Keeping you and your workmates safe at work is a top priority, so it’s important to understand what your business needs for an effective emergency plan. Make sure you’re aware of these requirements to help keep everyone safe!
If you would like more information, get in touch with our friendly HazardCo team – we’re always happy to help!
Electricity is essential on construction sites, but if the risks are not managed properly, it can pose serious dangers to people and property. Proper controls must be in place wherever electricity is used to keep everyone safe.
Because we use electricity differently across a site there are different ways to help manage the risks.
All hand-held appliances, lights, and electrical equipment used on-site must have protection in place against electric shock This can be done simply by connecting all electrical equipment through an RCD.
An RCD continuously monitors the electric current flowing along a circuit and disconnects the electricity supply if a fault is detected, reducing the risk of electric shock.
Fixed at the switchboard
A switchboard RCD is the most effective option. It protects all the wiring and appliances on that circuit. This must be installed by a licensed electrician.
Built into the powerpoint
A socket-outlet RCD is built into a standard powerpoint and protects equipment plugged into it. A licensed electrician is required for installation.
Portable
A portable RCD can be moved between powerpoints as needed. There are a few different types of portable RCD:
No electrician is needed – you can buy a portable RCD at a hardware shop or electrical equipment supplier, just make sure they are fit for commercial use. Both portable and non-portable RCDs should be tested daily.
Keep you and your team safe while working around electricity by checking your RCD (using the test button) daily before use. Get RCDs tested by a trained and competent person regularly, at least every three months.
Leads and cords are easily damaged, particularly those connected to equipment that is often moved. To protect them:
Check out our one-pager on Electrical Safety. You can print and display this at work, helping everyone manage electrical shock risks on-site.
During regular Site Reviews using the HazardCo App, check that RCDs and all electrical equipment are in good condition and have been tested and tagged. Electrical equipment should be tested and tagged every 3 months for construction, every 6 months for manufacturing, and every 12 months for low-use spaces such as offices.
For any questions or support, contact HazardCo and speak to one of our Health and Safety Advisors on 0800 555 339.
Health and safety is a core part of any business but incidents and injuries on the job can still happen. According to WorkSafe New Zealand’s 2022 – 2023 data, the construction industry had 6,240 injuries which resulted in more than a week off work. In that same year, there were 11 deaths. Construction and trades make up a significant portion of incidents and injuries at work and when you think about not only the cost of life but the time off, loss of productivity and money spent on rehabilitation it adds up to a pretty staggered sum.
From 2022 – 2023 there were 586 Notifiable incidents and 604 Notifiable injuries or work-related illnesses. With numbers like this, we need to help you find a way to improve the health and safety culture so you can make sure it’s safe and profitable as well.
The signs of poor health and safety
If you’re concerned that your health and safety policies and procedures aren’t being followed or maybe not quite up to scratch, there are a number of things you can keep your eyes peeled for:
So, how do you get your crew on board?
When it comes down to it, creating a culture of site safety isn’t as easy as putting new procedures in place and calling it a job well done – it’s up to you to involve and motivate your crew to be proactive and take safety into their own hands.
Some steps you can take include:
Communication
It seems like an obvious one but poor communication can really affect your efforts to create a safety culture. Having regular open communication with your crew about why you’re talking about all things safety is the best way to help them understand the importance.
The more transparent and clear you are, the more likely they will be to action any new initiatives. Make sure that your crew has easy access to your current health and safety guidelines so they can stay in the know about any changes.
Support your staff
If you are taking steps to improve your site safety culture, make sure you factor in both physical and mental health awareness in all that you do for your staff. By providing resources and establishing an environment where your crew feels respected and safe to open up and express themselves you’ll be able to create a support system where you can look after each other’s wellbeing and mental health.
Training
Ensuring that your crew are trained up on all the correct licenses, procedures and health and safety practices is a surefire way to make sure that they are fully knowledgeable on procedures. With the right training in place, you can have confidence that they know how to safely perform their jobs.
Be a leader
If your crew see you leading by example and taking health and safety seriously, they are more likely to as well. So lead from the front and be the one to start those open conversations about what’s going on on-site.
Reporting
You need to set the tone with your crew that reporting incidents isn’t something they need to feel anxious or uncomfortable about doing. Make it clear that reporting is a way of finding out what caused the accident or injury and what can be done to make sure it won’t happen again. By making proper reporting a core element of your crew’s job responsibilities it can become second nature to them.
Make it a team effort
Site safety impacts everyone, so it makes sense that your crew should have a hand in shaping their site’s culture. The more input they have, the more likely they are to follow precautions.
By having regular health and safety chats with your crew, you can give them the opportunity to voice their own safety concerns and opinions. By having open conversations and allowing input from your crew you’re giving them the ability to implement safety measures that affect their own jobs, ultimately making them more likely to follow processes and encourage others to do the same.
If you have any questions reach out to the HazardCo Team today
Whether you’re carrying out extensions, renovations, flood remedial work, large landscaping jobs, or you are engaging contractors or have the clients living/working on-site, HazardCo can help.
First, you will need to think about how you will manage health and safety on-site and how you will communicate this with other people involved, such as the homeowner, or other contractors on-site. This will make sure that everyone is on top of the site hazards and practicing good health and safety during your project.
A HazardCo Project contains site-specific resources for that job, including:
You can also open up the App for all your contractors when they are on-site by upgrading to Project Plus – talk to the team for more information.
If you meet any of the following requirements a Project could be needed.
The Team Pack Plus is designed for those who move regularly from job to job and are not usually managing larger projects. These are great for managing client inductions and safety procedures while on the go. Our Team Pack includes:
We recommend that you use the HazardCo App and Hub to manage your on-site health and safety. At the beginning of each day, complete a Risk Assessment on the HazardCo App. This will help identify that the work area is safe and make sure that you have the correct controls in place. Due to the nature of renovation work it is important that you consider noise and dust (examples; asbestos, silica and wood) and how you control these risks. A Task Analysis (TA) should be completed for all high-risk work. You can find out more information on completing Task Analyses by clicking here.
At the end of each day, make sure that you tidy up the work area and make sure that everything is made safe. If the work area cannot be entered after hours due to work or health and safety risks then this should be clearly communicated to your client. We recommend that this is also documented to them via an email or text message so you have evidence that this has been communicated.
Remember to use the HazardCo App to report any incidents on your site and the task function to report hazards.
Also, remember to record your Toolbox Meetings with your team. We recommend that you complete at least 2 Toolbox Meetings per site, per month. This demonstrates good consultation and communication with your team.
If you have any questions about your renovation work, give our friendly HazardCo Team a call. As part of your membership, you have 24/7 incident support and advisory support during business hours via 0800 555 339, so don’t be shy – get in touch with us and we’ll help you make your site a safer one
Tools, vehicles, and heavy equipment all create vibrations that can affect your body. This is a normal part of any tradie’s day, whether you’re picking up power tools or jumping in the truck. It’s so common that many don’t realize the potential harm these vibrations can cause. However, it’s something you should start thinking about and being aware of.
Vibrations are a natural part of working on any construction site but they do create a risk to you and your workers. Repeatedly using vibrating hand and power tools, or being around vibrating vehicles and machines can lead to serious and lasting harm to your blood vessels, nerves, and joints. Many of the most commonly used items give off some form of vibration. Here are the most common ways tradies are exposed to vibrations:
While these are the most common forms of exposure, the below should also be considered as they increase the risk of overexposure to vibrations:
We understand that for many tradies, working with vibrations is a natural and unavoidable part of the job. With that in mind, there are a few warning signs and symptoms of overexposure to keep an eye out for:
If you are continually exposed to vibrations especially in your hands and arms you can develop hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS) or carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS)
It is up to everyone on-site to look out for each other. Consultation with your team should take place to make sure an environment can be created where excessive exposure to vibrations are eliminated when possible or minimised when they can’t be avoided.
Below are simple yet effective ways to either eliminate or minimise the effects.
Above all else, be aware that vibrations can be extremely harmful, especially when you’re exposed for lengthy periods of time.
Your best tool for minimising the effects of vibrations is to start a conversation with your boss, or your team, and put steps in place to look out for each other and your equipment.
Worksafe resources: https://www.worksafe.govt.nz/topic-and-industry/vibration/
Making sure your scaffolding is safe and ready for action is key. Here are the times you’ve got to give it a good once over:
All scaffolds must be checked by a competent person before handover and scaffolds taller than 5m must be erected and inspected by someone who holds the appropriate Certificate of Competence (COC). Handover checks involve tagging the scaffolding. No matter the height, all scaffolding must have a tag clearly displaying important safety information at access points. The tag should include the following:
If there’s no tag, do not use it! Get in touch with your scaffold installer to sort it out and get it tagged.
Before starting each day, a pre-start check should be done. This can be done by a competent scaffold user using the HazardCo scaffolding pre-start checklist available from the Hazardco HUB.
Every week a certified scaffolder (if over 5m) or competent person (under 5m) should be checking the scaffolding to make sure it is safe. If the inspector has found any damages or non-compliant areas of the scaffold, then the access ladders need to be removed and the tag updated stating the scaffold is not compliant and should not be used.
A thorough inspection of your scaffolding should also be conducted after any tweaks, fixes, or wild weather. And don’t forget to keep records of all these inspections.
If you have any questions get in touch with the team at HazardCo or have a look at our other working at heights blog here
A musculoskeletal disorder is any pain felt in the muscles, bones, ligaments, tendons, blood vessels or nerves. You can feel this pain in just one area of the body, or throughout your whole body. The pain can range from mild to severe enough to interfere with your day-to-day life.
Trades workers have had the highest number of claims by occupation. According to ACC data Ligament, tendon and muscle injuries (also known as Musculoskeletal Disorders or MSDs) made up 65% of all claims. It is the most common type of injury where someone requires more than a week off work, a whopping 1,590 injured construction worker incidents were logged with WorkSafe between Jun22 and May23.
The residential construction industry is currently booming and subsequently the ACC claim numbers and payout costs for strains and sprains are also increasing. There are numerous factors which increase the risk of musculoskeletal injuries, these include time pressure, ageing workforces and unsafe lifting techniques.
We need to change the mindsets of workers thinking that “pain and injury is unavoidable” and make our younger workforce understand the combined impacts of repeated injuries – something that more experienced builders know very well.
It is well known that there are a range of factors that contribute to MSDs. It’s not just about a single factor such as the lifting technique (although for industries such as scaffolding and roofing, lifting and handling techniques are an important factor).
The research firmly points to five groups of factors we need to tackle when addressing MSDs in construction as shown in the diagram below these are work organisation, environmental, individual, psychological, biomechanical and physical factors:
It may not surprise you that physical factors often take most of the blame as their connection is easy to understand, measure and observe. There are also proven strategies to overcome physical factors such as machinery, equipment and task modifications.
Understanding how these factors can combine and influence each other to cause problems will be crucial. Working together and combining solutions to them in your approach is where the construction industry will get the most benefit.
The most common solutions for some of the above risk factors are:
We dive deeper into what treatment might look like, prevention tips, and the unseen costs associated with MSD in the blogs below:
Musculoskeletal what treatments might look like and prevention tips
5 things you can do to tackle musculoskeletal problems MSDs in your business
Musculoskeletal the hidden costs to workers lives and businesses
If you need anymore information get in touch with the HazardCo team.
Proper management of hazardous substances on-site is important to keep everyone and our environment safe. Legally speaking, hazardous substances refer to substances which have any of the following properties:
If you are using any hazardous substance in the workplace you need to make sure they are stored, used, transported and disposed of correctly, which will help to reduce the risk to anyone who uses or comes into contact with them.
To capture what hazardous substances you are using you must by law have a hazardous substance register along with the relevant safety data sheet (SDS).
This is a list of all your hazardous substances (including hazardous waste) that is used, handled, or stored at any of your sites. Having a register will ensure you know the substances you have on-site, the safety measures you need to follow, and what to do in case of an emergency.
Keeping your register in a central location on your site means that in case of an emergency, it can be accessed quickly by anyone who needs it.
Here are some key bits of information that need to be included on your register:
Not only do you need the information above, but you must also make sure that the register is up to date and available on-site.
As the register represents the maximum amount of the substance held, it means it’s not going to be a daily task to keep it up-to-date. But if the maximum quantity changes, the register needs to reflect this. We recommend that you review your register each time you make a change to ensure it’s up to date and accurate.
Creating your hazardous substance register is made much simpler with our Hazardous Substances Register, HazardCo members can access this via the HazardCo Hub in the templates section.
The purpose of a safety data sheet (SDS) is to provide key information about hazardous substances to the people who handle, use or store them or who could be exposed to them.
An SDS tells you
Remember it is the business owner’s responsibility to have an up to date SDS for each hazardous substance and make sure that their workers have access to it. The SDS must be less than 5 years old.
If you need a hand getting started with your hazardous substances register or would like more information, get in touch with the friendly HazardCo team today – we’re always happy to help.
When it comes to construction sites, ensuring the health & safety and wellbeing of everyone on-site is the top priority. It’s more than just wearing hard hats and high-vis vests. It involves careful planning and preparation of the specific needs, hazards and risks of each project. That’s where Site-Specific Safety Plans (SSSPs) come into play.
A SSSP is a detailed roadmap designed to ensure everyone stays safe from start to finish. It identifies the hazards, how you will minimise the risks, sets clear guidelines, and helps to create a culture of safety on-site.
Setting up health and safety with HazardCo Projects is quick and simple. All you need to do is log in to the HazardCo Hub and “create a Project”. You receive the completed SSSP straight away while the physical scan-in board will be sent out for you to display on-site.
Not only does HazardCo’s Project save you time at the start of your project, it saves time for everyone on the site. Once the project starts, everyone entering the site inducts themselves on-site using the QR code on the site scan-in board, and the QR scanner in the free HazardCo App. That’s right, everyone inducts themselves using their smartphone, no lengthy induction meetings or paperwork required, and you get a record of every completed induction too.
Make sure you request a Task Analysis from each of your contractors so you can include their Hazards and controls in your SSSP. This will help ensure you and others on site are well informed of all the hazards from start to end of the project.
Share the SSSP with the team. Anyone scanning into the site using your QR code and the HazardCo App will have immediate access. Every worker who sets foot on-site needs to know and understand the SSSP. This can be done during the site induction, where the workers learn about the project, potential hazards, and safety protocols, which they can do using the App. If you need more information on working with contractors you can check out this blog.
While there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to creating a SSSP, using digital tools like HazardCo can offer great time saving and streamlining benefits. Among many other benefits of using HazardCo, using it for SSSP means that you have:
Going digital with the HazardCo App means information flows more efficiently and this allows your teams to better collaborate with one another.
So, whether you’re building a multi residential, a new build or doing a big reno, remember: safety first, always. And with a solid SSSP in place, you’re one step closer to a successful and safe construction project.
For health and safety sorted in a flash, right from the very start of your new build, look no further than HazardCo Projects. It’s the smart way to maintain a safe site and have more time to focus on the job at hand.
If you would like to discuss your upcoming project please give our team a call on 0800 555 339.
When it comes to working safely at heights, make sure you’re eating a pie every Sunday. Wait…what?
Yep, you heard that right.
Remember the phrase: Every Sunday I Eat A Pie. It’s a handy way to remember the steps for staying safe: Eliminate, Substitute, Isolate, Engineer, Administrative, and PPE. These steps help you figure out what safety measures to use when you’re working at heights.
No matter the height you are working at, you have to make sure that you are controlling the risks, it doesn’t matter if that work is 40mm from the next surface or 40m.
Just like people argue about the best flavour of pie, there are different ways to working safely at heights, choosing the best methods such as the following examples of controls will be based on your specific situation, and the work being carried out. .
Eliminate: Not everything that needs doing has to be done “up there”. What tasks can be done on the ground before you have to do it at height? Every step achieved where you don’t have a risk of dropping objects is a reduction of other things to concentrate on when at height.
Substitute: What other methods can be used to get to the workspace? Instead of a ladder could you use a scaffold? MEWPs (like scissor lifts & boom lifts) can be really handy here, not only with safe access but also with making it easier on your body to get there and work all day.
Isolate: This means to physically prevent the contact between you and the risk (falling or even dropped objects etc) this can come in the form of guardrails, scaffolding, or nets to prevent things or people from falling to lower levels.
Engineer: This is a more permanent solution, think of your handrails on staircases or cleverly built seats with high backs around the edges of a raised deck. It’s built for purpose and will continue to deliver that outcome without you having to interact with it (passive protection) this is often referred to as safety in design.
Administrative: This is simply making people aware. Think about hazard boards, signs, warnings, toolbox talks or paperwork to communicate what you will be doing, how, and who is doing it when.
PPE: This is the likes of harnesses to prevent you getting to a place you can even fall if possible, and if you do fall then to lessen the severity of the injuries you would receive from a fall if set up correctly, a hard hat to protect your head from small items falling like screws and small items etc.
It’s important you and your team are actively involved in ensuring any work carried out at heights, is done in the safest way possible. Empower your team to speak up, highlight unsafe working situations or practices, and swiftly act to handle them.
We recommend doing a Task Analysis to put a plan in place to manage the risks involved with working at height. This will help you decide whether it’s possible to eliminate the risk of falling from height or what the most effective control/s are to minimise the risk.
So from the above, what’s your favourite flavour combinations? Which ones will satisfy your cravings to keep the team safe today?
If you’ve got a question about working at height or any other health and safety matter, the HazardCo Advisory Team is here to help. Give them a call on 0800 555 339
