HEALTH AND SAFETY AUDITING AND SAFETY STAR RATINGSAs a business improvement tool, internal auditing is something that is not usually on the radar for many NZ businesses and is usually due to,     • the lack of time,     • the concept is not seen as important     • the business owners don’t understand how to do this     • Its potential benefits for the improvement of the business.Whatever the reason it certainly has many benefits, one being the method to identify the weak points of the business.

The wheels of businessIf you consider all your key activities of the business as the wheels of your business. The ideal is that they are all inflated hard, running smoothly and the business is trucking along the road to prosperity, or is it?The reality is that this never happens in the commercial world and too often there are flat spots or even punctures and you aren’t even aware of it. If you are, how is it identified and importantly, what do you do about it and what is the cost?

The health and safety wheelIf you consider your health and safety systems to be one of the wheels, is it fully inflated or does it have some of flat spots?In my articles over the past two years, I have written a lot about the changing face of health and safety in New Zealand and the pending changes that all businesses will be facing, one of these changes may well be a business H&S performance rating system.

Safety Star rating systemA change that has been mooted is the introduction of a “Safety star rating system” to highlight the effectiveness (or otherwise) of the health and safety systems of your businesses.It is proposed that this approach will take precedence over the ACC Workplace Safety Management Programme and that ACC should be responsible for implementing the differentiated levies.

The Government appointed Health and Safety Task Force recommended that WorkSafe New Zealand should be responsible for auditing health and safety performance under a new risk and performance-rating levy regime. If invoked, the audit role would be significantly more intensive than the ACC’s Workplace safety Discounts and Safety Management Programme.If this does eventuate, it will mean there will have to be a major shift in the thinking of health and safety by NZ business.The safety star rating systems sounds challenging and very similar to the five star rating system that was introduced into the road transport industry. It is also interesting to note that there has been some resistance to this as its going to be used for several business issues, e.g. a low rating could lead to potentially higher ACC levies.

A good reason for auditing?The banks, other lending institutions and insurance companies may also decide to use the safety star rating to determine business risks and as a tool for pricing their services. Companies with low ratings may even find themselves the subject of closer scrutiny by other government departments and may well be denied access for government and local body or other commercial contracts.I think it’s a great way to get the health and safety chain draggers to lift their game, especially if they want to get those business contracts or lower ACC .levies.

So how does your business stack up?To assist you to quickly assess your level of health and safety performance Hasmate Ltd has developed an H&S self-auditing tool. It is designed to provide you with a simple but visual method to quickly assess the effectiveness of your current health and safety systems. It’s subjective in application but it clearly illustrates the areas that have the flat spots or punctures that your business needs to focus its attention on.to improve its health and safety performance to mitigate any potential commercial risk.

For a free, no obligation copy contact me and I will email it to you.Gordon AndersonManaging director Hasmate Ltdwww.hasmate.co.nzThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.