Management
What if...? Planning for the worst case scenario
By Sharyn Devereux-Blum
What you do before a disaster determines the quality of your life and the organisation afterwards!
Take a minute to think about this. With events like the sudden February earthquake in Christchurch and the catastrophe soon after in Japan, we saw again the images continually across our screens, heard people’s stories and almost everyone knew someone or helped someone affected by these events. So what have you planned for?
Resiliency is best developed between events rather than wishing you had prepared, as you go through an event. Let’s explore this further with the benefit of hindsight and the take the opportunity to ‘audit’ what you already have in place and improve your resiliency.
If we look at the ‘what if’ scenarios, then one to reflect on is no technology or reduced technology – no access to texting, phones, computers. What do your procedures tell you to do? What training have your staff had in such a situation? What plans B and C do you have in place and in what ways can you access information to plan in short and long term? Some organisations took days to account for staff.
Others were affected by the cascading consequences of the Christchurch earthquake and their back-up tapes were in the red zone so unable to be recovered. Where is your information located? How often is it backed up, where is it backed up and do all managers know about this? Do staff know that they might lose a day or two of recent work or that it will take days or possibly weeks to access it? Do you have your key information cloud based?
That way you can put processes in place and staff know what to expect in relation to the retrieval of information. Work with the worst case scenario and work backwards.
What training have the people in your workplace had to manage an emergency? Do you have all your eggs in one basket?
A key person in one South Island organisation with a role in business continuity was so affected by the earthquake that he just bolted for home, collected his family and left the city. That left a huge gap in this organisation in terms of leadership and corporate knowledge. Much of the critical information was all in this ‘persons head’ and it appears that the information was not documented nor was there a plan B in place.
Often we train the first team to respond but fail to recognise the effect on them in a long duration event where there is no one trained to take over from them. Make sure your training recognises that some events will test people for an extended period so ensure your second and third teams are receiving training and you have leadership and expertise in each. Check to see that people have received Coordinated Incident Management (CIMS) training. Sometimes managers say “I’m too busy to do training”, however disasters can occur at busy times, so include emergency training in people’s roles and responsibilities. Tie it into their performance appraisals so all people perform well on the day.
Do you have people that are civil defence and/or rescue team trained? Research tells us that 80 per cent of rescues are performed by people immediately around us.
Have people worked with equipment from the civil defence cabinet? Is the equipment up to modern standards? Some ropes in cabinets are from days long gone and in dire need of replacement with modern Kernmantle ropes.
Provide earthquake and tsunami awareness training for all staff which includes home and work preparedness. Discuss and research the likely impact of a Tsunami following an earthquake where you live and work. Work out some strategies ahead of time.
When was the last time your plan was reviewed? It’s a ‘living document’ so it’s now an opportune time to review your plan/ policies/ procedures, training and look at the ‘what if’ scenarios that could affect your organisation. Involve the health and safety committee and staff with a genuine interest in civil defence and ensure information is shared with others.
Work on the international trend that everyone has two roles within the organisation, that is a day job and an emergency response job. Make sure people know what is expected of them and they know what to do. Develop resiliency across your organisation and consider resilience beyond the first three days. Everyone’s efforts will make a difference.
Sharyn Devereux-Blum and Paul Blum are directors of Devereux-Blum Training and Development Limited, a tertiary education provider working nationally in the emergency management sector.
For further information:
Visit: www.emergencymanagement.co.nz
Email: sharyn [at] emergencymanagement [dot] co [dot] nz
Emergency planning: are you ready for the next big event?
By Sarah-Lee Stead and Kim Baird
Recent tragic events, such as the Brisbane floods, Pike River mine explosion and the earthquakes in Christchurch and Japan, highlight the need for employers to have in place effective emergency plans and procedures to maintain employee safety in situations where they will be most be at risk.
Sections 6 and 12 of the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992 (‘Act’) identify an employers legal responsibilities in relation to making appropriate plans for an emergency situation, should one arise. In broad terms, employers are required to have procedures in place to deal with emergencies and ensure that employers are informed about those procedures. The wording of section 12 indicates that it is not enough to provide general information that addresses what to do if an emergency occurs, but suggests that responses to emergencies need to be situation specific and directly relate to the work being performed and where.
Although the Act does not provide a definition as to what is considered an ‘emergency’, it is safe to assume emergency situations will include: fires, earthquakes, floods, severe weather conditions (blizzards/heat waves) and health-related emergencies (pandemics and epidemics).
Although the Department of Labour has taken a more lenient approach to potential breaches of the Act following the Christchurch earthquake, businesses should not assume that will always occur.
In Department of Labour v AFFCO New Zealand Ltd, AFFCO was prosecuted under section 6(e) for failing to develop procedures for dealing with emergencies that may arise while employees are at work. The prosecution was brought after it was found that during a fire the fire alarm was heard in some areas of the plant but not in the area of the fire itself. The investigation showed that necessary emergency evacuation procedures had not been carried out and that the system to ensure all employees were accounted for in an evacuation was inadequate. Additionally, workers were not aware of the potential hazard from smoke and fumes given off from the burning insulation material.
Australian case law similarly highlights the need for effective communication of emergency procedures. In the Australian decision of Morrison v Eureka Opals Pty Ltd (No 3), Eureka Opals was charged for failing to ensure the premises, and the means of access, were safe and without risk to health. In that case, part of the roof of an underground opal mine collapsed and injured two people. The Court found that Eureka had failed to implement appropriate emergency procedures for the mine and had also failed to ensure the mine was equipped with an adequate communication system, so as to enable medical and emergency services to be contacted when persons were injured at the mine. The absence of an adequate communication system meant that there were significant delays in contacting medical and emergency services to assist in the evacuation and treatment of injured persons in the mine. The lack of emergency procedures generally also meant that there was no plan was in place to avoid further risk from roof collapse, increasing the risk of further injury to rescue workers and potentially aggravating the seriousness of injuries already sustained.
These cases illustrate that a pro-active approach is required by employers, in order to comply with the provisions in health and safety legislation.
The key considerations to keep in mind when planning and implementing ‘emergency procedures’ are:
- Identifying specific aspects of an employee’s work that might be relevant, if an emergency were to arise. This might include the machinery or material they are working with, as well as the environment they are working in.
- Communicating information to, and training employees about, what to do if a particular kind of emergency was to occur in a clear and simple way and checking that they understand those procedures. Information can be communicated in a variety of ways – in writing, verbally or with diagrams. A questionnaire or survey could be used to verify that employees are aware of and understand what to do in the event of an emergency.
- Drills are extremely important. In times of stress people will often forget what they have been taught, so it is important to practice emergency procedures so that they become second nature.
- It can be useful to have an individual or a committee with the role of monitoring and updating an organisation’s emergency plans. It is important to be aware of any possible gaps that may exist in current procedures and deal with these as soon as they arise. Opportunities to practice emergency procedures would be helpful in identifying such shortcomings.
Employers need to be pro-active about implementing and communicating appropriate procedures for dealing with emergencies to their employees. Failure to have suitably trained staff or necessary equipment to deal with an emergency could lead to the prosecution of an employer under the relevant provisions of the Act.
Sarah Lee Stead is an associate and Kim Baird is a solicitor at Kensington Swan.
Smoke signals: a case of lawful discrimination
By Charlotte Parkhill
In a business world of carrots and sticks, employers have traditionally used the 'carrot' approach to convince their employees to adopt healthier lifestyles. Of course, the incentive for an employer to offer subsidised gym memberships, smoking cessation programs and health checks to employees is not 100 per cent altruistic. Employees who maintain healthy lifestyles take fewer sick days, can work longer hours and they often deal with stress better. Ultimately, this leads to a more productive workplace.
The health effects of smoking are well-known and some employers are taking more onerous steps to promote a smoke-free work environment. In line with this trend, Auckland District Health Board (ADHB) has announced that it is proposing not to hire smokers. Under the proposal, ADHB, which employs more than 10,000 people, would turn away any prospective health worker who admitted to being a smoker during the recruitment process. ADHB explains that nurses and healthcare workers have a responsibility to be positive role models to patients, particularly when encouraging them to give up smoking. There is also a strong argument that ADHB has a public duty to promote health, and smoking could be seen as inconsistent with that duty.
These policies are not unique to New Zealand and have been dubbed 'smoker-free' policies internationally. In 2005, the World Health Organisation stopped hiring smokers. Similar policies are also becoming increasingly common in the US and Canada.
The proposal has been labelled as 'clear discrimination' by the nurse's union. The union points to the fact that around 35 per cent of its members smoke and has indicated that it will oppose the policy.
Discrimination or an employer's discretion?
Unless employers have a valid defence, it is unlawful to discriminate directly or indirectly against applicants in any recruitment process on a prohibited ground. Direct discrimination is usually easy to spot, and includes a situation where an individual is treated less favourably than another with similar capabilities because of a prohibited ground (such as refusing to hire an individual due to their race). Indirect discrimination can arise from policies adopted by employers. For example, conditions of employment which appear non-discriminatory (for example, physical requirements for a position) imposed by an employer may, nevertheless, operate to discriminate against an applicant with a disability.
The list of prohibited grounds of discrimination in New Zealand is exhaustive under the Human Rights Act 1993, which means that additional grounds of discrimination cannot be added except by statutory amendment. The grounds include those which have been recognised by the United Nations conventions as discrimination, such as age, race, marital status, sex, disability and sexual orientation.
Smoking is not expressly included as a prohibited ground of discrimination under the Act. Indeed, many New Zealanders may see it as quite incongruous to see 'smoking' sitting beside protected characteristics, like race, sex and age, in the list of prohibited grounds. Rather than protecting smokers, social policy has moved towards ostracising smokers from many public spaces and from cafes, bars and restaurants and it would be contrary to that move to provide smokers with legal claims for discrimination.
Disability discrimination
The question arises as to whether smoking could fall within the meaning of disability discrimination. The definition of disability under the Act includes physical, psychiatric, intellectual, or psychological disabilities or impairments. A smoker could argue that their addiction amounts to a physical or psychological impairment. However, as noted by the Full Court of the Employment Court in 20041, 'a disability is the state of being disabled' and the Act aims to cover 'a condition which ordinary people would regard as a handicap'. It is unlikely that addiction to smoking would reach this standard.
Furthermore, even if a smoker had a smoking-related illness, such as cancer or emphysema (which could amount to a disability under the Act), an employer's decision not to hire them under a smoke-free policy may not be discriminatory, provided that the decision is based solely on the fact that the individual is a current smoker, rather than on their resulting illness.
A similar issue has arisen in relation to whether or not obese employees could fall within the definition of the Human Rights Act. If so, an employer could not refuse to hire an obese employee without the risk of falling foul of the Act. In an Australian case, a pregnant and obese driver successfully claimed sex discrimination in relation to her pregnancy when an employer refused to hire her. However, the Tribunal doubted whether obesity on its own could constitute physical impairment under the Australian legislation.
The question for employers is whether to adopt the 'stick' approach for employees with unhealthy lifestyles. There may be issues from a policy perspective as to where an employer should reasonably draw the line in relation to recruitment of new staff. For existing employees, policies which aim to deter employees from engaging in activities like smoking could be deemed to be unfair if they unreasonably disadvantage employees or result in the termination of employment.
While smokers may feel that smoker-free recruitment policies are unfair, they are not discriminatory and the publicity from the move by the ADHB may result in an increasing number of health-conscious employers adopting a similar approach.
Charlotte Parkhill is a senior associate in the employment team at Kensington Swan.
1 NZ Amalgamated Engineering Printing and Manufacturing Union Inc v Air New Zealand Ltd [2004] 1 ERNZ 614.
Pike River mine explosion - a shock to the very foundations of safety and health in New Zealand
The tragedy at Pike River mine last November, with the death of 29 miners has created an horrendous cost in both human and economic terms. In economic terms already we know the police bill is $11m, the cost of the inquiry expected to top $8.5m the costs to the families, local firms further millions and the mine itself, worth over $100 m may still not be recovered, or will cost something similar to re-eastablish. Most of these costs have fallen on the taxpayer or people throughout the country, through donations.
While the Christchurch earthquakes have affected literally thousands of people and cost the country billions, the quakes have been seen as 'acts of nature' that we know something about in the 'shaky isles'. This does not mean that there are not important questions to answer, such as why there were no public inspections of below standard buildings after the first shock, which subsequently killed hundreds of people in the second. The Royal Commission in Christchurch will examine that, among other things.
The Royal Commission on the Pike River Mine Explosion will have an equally sobering task. The human scale of this tragedy is intensified by the fact that the West Coast mining community is tight knit, very loyal to its industry and to its people. They are shell-shocked. The realisation, too, that this explosion was no 'act of nature', unlike the earthquake on the other side of the mountains, makes it much more difficult to deal with. It is fair to say that this tragedy has created a severe crisis in the whole structure of health and safety administration in our country. It has been shaken to its very foundations.
As a nation, we have commonly thought that we have been up there with the best. In fact, we are among the worst, for developed countries, in terms of workplace injuries and ill-health. Our political, civil service and industrial leaders know this, especially those that attend international meetings and have seen the comparable statistics. Yet very little has been done in recent years to correct this. Our leaders seem paralysed by the reality and discuss it only in restricted meetings. How can this be?
We are now being forced to account for ourselves, by the Pike River mine explosion. My predicton is that it will be an increasingly sobering experience, as the information comes out. We have already been shocked in recent days by revelations by workers and contractors of the infringement of key safety practices, all internationally accepted norms. It does not matter whether it is an infringement of gas regulations, accounting for men underground or delays in alerting mine safety services. The critical issue at Pike River mine, as at the Upper Big Branch mine in the US, which also killed 29 miners in an explosion last year, is gas management.
The management of methane gas in underground coal mines is a often the most important safety issue miners can face. A whole system of monitoring and regulation has been developed in advanced countries to ensure that gas explosions do not happen, and that they do not trigger coal dust explosions. As Davitt McAteer, the US mine safety expert has noted, 'Modern mines just do not blow up. We know how to prevent explosions in coal mines'. The fact is, too, that once they happen it is very hard to save anyone. In the last 10 explosions in US mines, for example, only one man has been saved.
The crunch issue for the New Zealand government - indeed the whole parliament - is: why are our safety and health standards inferior, as the Prime Minister himself has recently acknowledged, to Australia's? The essential reason is simple. We moved to a system of self regulation in safety and health in our mines in the late 1990s, with the abolition of the professional mines inspectorate. They were replaced by OSH inspectors, with less gravitas, less experience and fewer powers. These powers themselves were confused by the system of confused regulations and codes of practice, and the reliance on the industry to monitor itself.
For larger companies, they were capable of doing a better job for themselves, although even they have been found wanting. Enter Pike River company,a competitor with access to a prime coal resource and what did the self regulatory framework do for them? Company bodies, such as the group of CEOs working nationally on models of health and safety can make fine declarations, but such companies in industry associations are competitors, too. In addition,they have no locus to intervene like a chief inspector can to sort out problems, or give advice when it is not particularly welcomed.
Pike River will become the seminal lesson in the failure of self regulation of health and safety in high risk industries. In New Zealand, this is not restricted to coal mining. Will we learn from it and re-introduce a professional inspectorate and the safety triangle system developed further by the best practice countries of Australia, the EU and, increasingly China and India? Or will we leave all this to others to study as a lesson of how not to run a modern coal industry? For we can be certain of one thing - education and training of the next generation of mine managers, in their mining engineering schools internationally will use the Pike River mine explosion as a case study. It is already in some syllabuses.
Finally,what will parliament do? This is a responsibility for the whole of parliament, not just the government. Our country failed the Pike River men and their families. It is irrelevant who or which minister did what when - our task is to right the wrongs, pay due diligence and compensation so far as it is possible to do so, given the enduring grief and to ensure, above all, that miners in the future are kept safe. So, the first act of parliament must be to appoint an acting chief inspector to work with the industry and the Royal Commission, to bring our regulator system into the modern era and to re-instate the worker safety inspectors, so essential for a high risk industry. This can be done now.
Increased safety inspection will not reduce workplace accidents
By Paul Reyneke
The recent enquiry into the Pike River mine accident raised the question of the role of safety inspectors in reducing workplace injuries. While not wanting to comment on this particular case, recent research shows that exclusively focusing on safety inspections will not necessarily result in a reduction in workplace accidents. It is not practical to suggest that safety can be inspected into an organisation.
The question is not what is right or wrong in Pike River’s case. Royal Commission enquiry will identify causes in that case. But, safety is about much more than engineering. It’s a combination of people and things. To focus on an inspector’s role is operating from a very narrow injury causation perspective. It’s unrealistic to expect that any one inspector can carry all the knowledge necessary to keep an entire organisation and its employees safe.
Beyond the reach of inspectors
Research shows that people do what their habits tell them to do. It’s like driving your car, and only realising that you’ve done something that you shouldn’t do, such as going a little too fast around a bend, when you lose control of the car. By the time you have realised your mistake, the damage is done. And it’s too late. There is not much an inspector can do to prevent this, other than having an inspector at every bend in the road. And even then there is no guarantee you won’t realise too late you are going too fast.
In 2008/09 ACC paid weekly compensation to 27,000 people injured at work during that year. All these injuries were not the result of mechanical or technical failures. My own research shows the failure is in the lack of safety habits in the workplace. The emphasis needs to be on supporting people to change their habitual behaviour, rather than merely policing people at work with inspectors.
Identifying the cause of the problem
‘Hazard management’, ‘eliminate, isolate, minimise’, and ‘all practicable steps’ are established safety terminology; however, they do not always address the issue that managers are faced with - why many accidents happen in the first place. If a staff member is injured while not following instructions or not using ‘common sense’, then applying an ‘eliminate, isolate or minimise the hazard’ strategy will not address the real problem. The staff member knew the rules but simply let habitual behaviour over-ride common sense.
Changing habits to reduce accidents
This change in behaviour requires a paradigm shift in thinking for the employee and employer.. The refocusing of thinking sees safety being used as a vehicle to encourage staff to avoid taking the shortcuts that can result in accidents.
Behavioural change begins within the culture of the organisation. Culture is not mystical or complicated. What we’re talking about here is the way that people do things, without thinking, which can become second nature; habits. Changing these company-wide habits does not come about through instruction, direction or demand. It can be achieved when people can see the benefits for them and are naturally more receptive. Nor is it a ‘big bang’, one-off event that cures everything. It requires practicing many small, seemingly insignificant, new behaviour steps until it becomes the people’s autopilot. As these small changes build up, the whole culture changes, with fewer and fewer unsafe acts being part of the organisation’s habits.
The result of this is an increase in productivity and reduced wastage, while at the same time reducing workplace injuries. We’ve put this research into practice and through changing of workplace habits have seen one national multi site organisation record a 95 per cent reduction in accidents.
Dr. Paul Reyneke is managing director of Adapto, specialists in Health and Safety behavioural management. He is a recent recipient of the Safeguard New Zealand Health and Safety Practitioner of the Year Award.
For further information:
Visit: www.adapto.co.nz
Email: paul [dot] reyneke [at] adapto [dot] co [dot] nz
Emergency at the Ports of Auckland
In June, a forklift carrying an intermediate bulk container (IBC) of a toxic flammable liquid crashed into a barrier, accidently knocking a person to the ground and spilling an unknown amount in the process. Three staff members were injured as a result - two with head wounds and another mildly injured after knocking his head.
Fortunately for the victims and the surrounding environment, the emergency was a realistic scenario, rather than a real event, staged to test the team on their first aid and spill response.
The scenario was organised and run by Quality Environmental Consulting Ltd (QEC). QEC recently offered one lucky company to be the winner of a hazardous substance team training exercise, and Ports of Auckland won.
First aiders were called to the incident to attend to the ‘victims’ and other staff members on hand were asked to manage the chemical spill.
"The focus on injured staff was good, making sure everyone was okay," reported environmental health and safety officer, Gillian Somerville.
"It was a really good test of our spill kit and the bunding," said Phil Eades, a participant and a manager of the engineering department at Ports of Auckland. The consultants and team members had plenty of good ideas to improve the response even further following the debrief, including Phil’s suggestion to "yell more".
There are a number of benefits to running emergency scenarios like this one. Firstly and most importantly, staff are better prepared to respond to a real life event, reducing the likelihood of a serious outcome to people and/or the environment. A scenario can also provide a boost to staff morale and confidence in workmates – even if the scenario goes badly, constructive feedback can really help focus the team on issues and get traction for addressing specific issues.
This scenario was designed to test the engineering teams’ response to an unusual event. To affect this, QEC placed hazardous pictograms on the ‘chemical’ container. The liquid in the container was in no way harmful to people or the environment.
Bridget Derham is a consultant at QEC, specialists in emergency scenario training. For further information:
Call: 07 827 0075
Visit: www.qec.co.nz/training-programmes
Don’t gamble with your life
Earlier this month Site Safe, in association with Unitec, held their annual Certificate in Construction Site Safety Graduation, under the theme 'Be safe; don't gamble with your life'.
This year, there was a total of 119 graduates from 53 businesses, with the ages of graduates ranging from 17 to 65, showing it is never too late to learn about safety. The large construction companies, such as Fletchers, Hawkins and Mainzeal, had a number of graduates each, but many also came from medium and small business, some with as little as five staff.
The event also announced three other important Site Safe initiatives:
- The first was that Hawkins Construction was awarded Tier 3 status as part of Site Safe's Construction Safety Charter Accreditation. Hawkins is the first company to gain Tier three status, proving their excellence in health and safety leadership. Tier three applicants are measured on their commitment and personal involvement of executive and senior management teams in health, safety and environmental activities and organisational accountability. Applicants must continue to pass Tier 2 'on-site behaviours' and Tier 1 'systems'. It is Site Safe's hope that other companies will follow their example and aim for this level of accreditation.
- The second initiative to be announced was that Site Safe has four new scholarships available which target Maori and Pacifika trainees to complete the Certificate in Construction Site Safety.
- Finally, the new Site Safe Board was announced and official farewells were made to the retiring members: Brian Olsen, National Manager Health and Safety and Quality Assurance at Mainzeal Construction Ltd; Kevin McKenna, Executive Director at Transfield Services NZ Ltd; and David O'Connell, National Secretary NZ Building Trades Union.
Amongst the speakers was Lesley Haines, Deputy Chief Executive - Labour Group, DoL. Ms. Haines quoted some dismal statistics: workers in New Zealand are four times more likely to be killed at work as those in UK, and two times more likely compared to Australia and Canada. On an optimistic note, Ms. Haines sited the decline in the road toll over the last twenty ears as an example of how change can happen, and used her bent thigh and knee to show how the aim was to turn a slow decline in workplace death and injury into a more steeper drop. "We want to a put a knee in the trend," Ms Haines said.
Other speakers included Site Safe Board Chairman Peter Heaphy, Unitec Chief Executive Rick Ede, and Site Safe's Blake Kyle. Comedian Michelle A'Court kept the audience amused, and occasionally wide-eyed, with her bawdy repartee and the event was nicely rounded off by some entertaining irreverence from Ben Hurley. Although an entertaining evening, audience members were not detracted from the serious theme of the event: too many people are dying on construction sites because of unsafe work practices and everyone in and connected to the industry needs to continue to pull together to raise health and standards, and to reward those who are working hard to raise the bar.
Official sponsors for the event included: Unitec, Fletcher Construction, Hawkins Construction, Mainzeal Construction, Cassidy Construction and Sperian Safety Equipment.