Below is a personal summary of the Central Otago ACC Business Customer Seminar
ACC Has Finally Got Its Messaging Right!
Last year, I zoned out during the ACC presentation. There was too much talk about ‘products’ and statistics that I already knew. This year, Julie Alexander Manager Business Customer Solutions provided a refreshingly new approach. Given that she has been the Manager Partnership Investments: NZTA and Senior Policy Advisor: Wellington City Council, it’s not surprising she knows what she is talking about!
The statistics she shared were to the point and relevant to the audience. In 2017 ACC
- Dealt with other 2 million claims
- These claims cost $3 billion
Put simply, ACC levies look after “our people”, as most businesses couldn’t cover the costs of rehabilitating seriously injured worker on their own.
ACC’s new focus has put the worker at the heart of everything. With the tagline ‘Prevent. Care. Recover – Improving New Zealand’s quality of life’. Either ACC will help prevent injuries, or help New Zealanders and our visitors get back to everyday life if they’ve had an accident.
ACC’s four focus areas right now are:
- Managing body stressing incidents: In 2017, there were 4,200 claims that cost $120 Mill
- Assisting the Healthcare & Aged Care sectors to minimise injuries. Throughout 2018 and 2019 this will extend to other sectors.
- Supporting small to medium enterprises
- Developing better incentives so employers can decrease their levies and have safer/healthier workplaces
Rodney Lonneker: Ratbag to Sawmill owner
Rodney Lonneker is one of the most authentic speakers that I have ever heard, and the whole audience leaned in to hear what he had to say. As a self-proclaimed ‘Ratbag’, he was brutally honest about his younger days which involved playing rugby, deliberately failing school and a fair bit of chemical enhancement via alcohol and marijuana.
Happenstance saw a young Rodney being paid to play rugby in Ireland and learning a few key life lessons. Such as a work ethic, how to talk to people and avoid car bombs. After coming back to New Zealand, he met his future wife Amanda and they settled in Riverton. His career at Pankhurst Sawmill literally started with stacking lumber straight off the table.
This role would lead to an endless string of qualifications and awards that saw him become an artisan at all thing’s ‘milling’. Eventually, he and his wife purchased the entire operation. Just to make things interesting, in between study and work he got married, had three daughters and decided to take Riverton Rugby to the Southern Premier League (for the first time in the club’s history).
I found some of his health and safety initiatives at the mill especially inspiring. For example:
- A drug and alcohol policy that included everyone. He gets his own random tests done and the team offered full support for those who wanted to deal with any drug and alcohol-related issues.
- A massive meet and greet with all the local fire brigades attending. The firey’s got to understand the key hazards at the mill and how their team could be affected during a red-hot event.
- Part of their risk management programme is to get the entire mill thermal imaged each year, looking for hot spots in the mills wiring.
Health and safety aside, my favourite moment in the presentation was when Rodney radiated pride because he had managed to give other self-proclaimed ‘Ratbags’ a second chance and a job at the mill.
In summary, the world needs more Rodney Lonnekers.
Lance Burdett of WARN International: Just Breath.
Lance Burdett specialises in workplace challenges. Having been a hostage negotiator he’s quite well qualified to discuss stressful situations. Having suffered from depression, he can also present his ideas from a place of deep authenticity.
A lot of his discussion on the human brain and how we deal with ‘fight or flight’ situations was a good reminder of how to keep things simple and that delivering training with a dose of humour makes it even more effective.
Here were some of his key tips that resonated with me:
- Sleep: If you can’t sleep take three breathes focusing on your left nostril, three breaths focusing on your right nostril then three breaths focusing on both nostrils…. If you are not asleep repeat the process (This works, I’ve tried it!).
- Rehydration: If your wee is black you are dead. Have one glass of water an hour, it will help you process food, stay focused and generally be a functional human being. (This also works).
- Balance: Your day will be better if you do 20 mins of exercise + 20 mins of smiling and laughing + 20 mins thinking about what you are grateful for. (Yup, this works too).
There is a wealth of information on proactive tips to keep you positive, get better sleep, deal with stress and just breath on Lance’s website, go to www.warninternational.com.
The Cat Has Bounced and our HSE Stats are still CRAPTASTIC: WorksafeNZ Update
I’ve never liked the term ‘Dead Cat Bounce’ in the financial world, and I like it even less when it’s referring to workplace fatalities. However, in this context Darren Handforth – Chief Inspector of WorksafeNZ was right. Compared to other OCED countries our workplace health and safety statistics have improved and then started to decline again. For the record, of course, the word ‘CrapTastic’ is mine, not Darren’s.
Over the last five years, more than 250 people were killed and almost 2,000 seriously injured at work. It’s also estimated that around 600-900 people die every year from work-related ill health. Who knew the number one way for a farmer to die is skin cancer (not suicide or quadbikes, although these stats are horrendous too).
The ever-present challenge for employers is to find the balance between managing immediate traumatic events and long-term health issues. This is clearly identified in the NZ Health and Safety at Work Strategy 2018-2028 , which is still moving through its consultation process. The vision is that ‘all New Zealander’s are healthy and safe at work’ by engaging the following strategies:
- Ensuring all businesses have proportionate and effective risk management
- Supporting high-risk sectors: agriculture, forestry, construction and manufacturing strategies and SME’s.
- Focusing on high risk- workers: Māori, Pasifika, migrants, younger and older workers
On a tactical level, this means
- Genuine and effective worker participation
- Strong, visible leadership that buys into workplace HSE
- A robust level of capacity and capability within the HSE profession
- High-quality data and measurement
- A national culture that is more risk aware
- Work-related health is taken seriously
- SMEs have easy access to useful information
- Population groups at greater risk are targeted effectively
Darren also discussed the new free Safe+ online tools and I have to say I think the free audit is awesome and I will definitely be using it with key clients.
I can only hope that the strategy works and over the next few years, the stats really do improve as workplaces begin to own their in-house health and safety systems and no more dead cats (statistical or otherwise) bounce through our nations HSE stats.
Finally, thank you Team ACC for making this happen and organising such gifted speakers to come along and share their knowledge. My Thursday morning was definitely not wasted.