Push for professionalism in workplace health and safety

Massey University researchers are backing plans to reform New Zealand’s workplace health and safety system and introduce a professional certification scheme.

A new health and safety crown agency, WorkSafe New Zealand, is expected to be established in December to focus on reducing the death and injury toll in workplaces.

WorkSafe NZ will work with employers and employees to promote good practices, enforce regulations, set standards, develop codes of practice and introduce a professional registration scheme for occupational health and safety (OHS) practitioners.

It follows the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy and the Independent Taskforce on Workplace Health and Safety, which made recommendations for change in the sector and the creation of the agency.

Staff in Massey University’s Centre for Ergonomics, Occupational Health and Safety say there is a need for greater professionalism among OHS practitioners in New Zealand. A professional certification scheme is “overdue”.

Professor of Ergonomics Stephen Legg, Associate Professor in OHS Ian Laird and senior lecturer in OHS Dr Kirsten Olsen say “it is important New Zealand shifts to an era of greater professionalism in OHS so that disasters such as Pike River never happen again and that systemic latent dysfunction in OHS in organisations, both large and small, are avoided and minimised”.

“We want to help to create healthy workplaces to become the norm - rather than the exception - in New Zealand.”

They point out that while students graduating from Massey’s OHS and Ergonomics courses are already “well on the road to certification”, as the courses are accredited with international certification agencies including the United Kingdom, it is time New Zealand had its own scheme.

They believe OHS professional registration or accreditation should initially come under WorkSafe NZ, to monitor the development of the OHS Body of Knowledge and accreditation of tertiary OHS education programs. It could then be transferred to an independent OHS Practitioner Registration Board.

While the taskforce has said the OHS market in New Zealand will not warrant professional registration until 2018, the Massey OHS and ergonomics team says action is needed now.

“We believe a number of currently practising OHS practitioners would have the ability to present a portfolio of qualifications and work experience that would meet the professional registration requirements. New Zealand should not wait until 2018. The process of developing a professional scheme should start now.”

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