Small businesses targeted in safety drive.

Friday 8 October 1999

A new information pack designed to help small-to-medium-sized businesses make their workplaces safer is to be released today by the Occupational Safety and Health Service (OSH) of the Department of Labour.

The Basic Steps pack is to be launched in the Capital at the Wellington Musical Theatre in Vivian Street at 5pm as a finale to OSH’s WorkSafe Week 1999.

"World-wide, and New Zealand is no exception, one of the hardest groups to reach with information on health and safety in the workplace is small-to-medium-sized businesses," says OSH general manager Bob Hill.

"Traditionally this is the sector that has struggled to implement good health and safety programmes. For them, compliance is a real challenge.

"The reasons are varied: a lack of resources; a lack of knowledge of the law; and a failure to realise that good health and safety can be a cost saving rather than simply a cost."

The Basic Steps package is an extension of the "Three Steps" package released four years ago. It is aimed specifically at small-to-medium-sized businesses.

"It contains practical easy to follow steps to ensure small employers can keep their workers safe and healthy and at the same time comply with the Health and Safety in Employment Act.

"The package contains eight sheets showing employers how to take a systematic approach to health and safety."

A hazard management sheet shows how to identify and then control hazards in the workplace. Other sheets include:

• details on the information employers must supply to their employees
• accident recording and reporting;
• training of employees;
• emergency procedures;
• relationship between principals and contractors;
• how to notify serious harm accidents.
• definitions of terms used in the Health and Safety in Employment Act.

The package uses the dance analogy…

"If you want to learn to dance, you have to master the basic steps. Similarly, if you want to be safe and healthy at work, you have to follow the basic steps set out in the HSE Act," Mr Hill said.

"The dance theme has been used to give the package a wide appeal, that is it covers all businesses and workplaces rather than being specific to a single industry or occupational group.

"I am sure this package will prove very successful in reaching its target audience and helping them keep safe and healthy at work."