Phil’s just taken over as CE at WorkSafe and he’s advancing two propositions to reduce the unacceptable death and injury toll on New Zealand’s workers.
He says each element of your health and safety approach must be making a measurable difference – if it is not, then you need to do something different that will. And, he introduced the concept of Better Work – an aspirational challenge to all of us. He stressed that these are a work in progress so watch out for more.
Phil’s very clear, this country has a health and safety problem:
- We kill 2 x more workers than Australia does
- We kill 4 x more workers than the United Kingdom
- 73% of workplace fatalities involve vehicles
- 89% of our workplace fatalities are health-related and only 11% are acute injuries
We all own this problem, regardless of whether we are an employer, worker or safety professional. He was clear that while we’ve made progress, health and safety performance is still not good enough and he told us, smugly benchmarking ourselves to say ‘well we are only slightly crap’ instead of ‘totally crap’ like a comparable organisation is nonsensical. We know that we need to make a measurable difference.
Phil went on to describe how Worksafe’s current focus has been driven by harm. That is the regulatory role, investigating harm. That is an event where a worker has died, been injured or has developed a work-related illness; or there has been a notifiable incident.
The intention moving forward is to focus on ‘intelligent decision making’, which means we need to catch emerging issues before they cause harm. He used the example of workplace fatalities involving vehicles where more than half occurred off-road. According to Phil, by investing time and energy into emerging issues and by using innovative techniques we can focus on how we can be better at working across all industries.
Phil explained that he wants to provide his inspectorate with the tools and technology that will allow them to be almost fully mobile. He’s not keen on increasing the amount of bricks and mortar offices but wants to have inspectors and investigators working independently and spending more time out on worksites, rather than driving back to the offices to write up reports.
I don’t envy anyone that works at Worksafe, their job is complex and they often face ruthless criticism. The vision is that everyone who goes to work comes home healthy and safe, and the purpose is to transform New Zealand’s workplace health and safety performance. Achieving the vision and purpose is not all within the regulator’s span of control, as it is our business leaders that control their organisation’s strategic direction. However, based on this presentation it seems like Phil and his team are on the right track; but, they have a long journey ahead of them.
The COHSF committee would like to formally thank Phil for taking the time to come and speak to us and would welcome him back anytime.
QUICKFIRE QUESTIONS
1. What has been the highlight of your working career?
Being recently appointed to CE of WorkSafe. I have the opportunity to save lives through improving work H&S and that’s a real privilege.
2. What has been the hardest decision that you have had to make during your working career?
Sadly, I have to do this every day in my current role. We can’t deal with every workplace incident reported to us and so I make resourcing decisions that mean not all victims and their families get the response I would like to give them.
3. What was the hardest lesson that you have had to learn?
Life is not always fair (and it’s not meant to be). Sometimes we can do everything right and still get a bad result. Resilience and friendships become really important when this happens.
4. If you could go back to your first year in your professional role, what advice would you give to your younger self?
Get more sleep! When I was younger I burned the candle at both ends. These days I’m often in bed before 10pm.
5. What advice would you give to people starting out in their health and safety career?
Be clear about what is your responsibility versus those around you. Many H&S people I speak to feel responsible for business performance. They are not. Their job is to provide advice and subject matter expertise to enable managers and workers others to do the right thing.
6. What is the key message from your presentation?
There is a lot of good work going on across health and safety, but it is only valuable if it makes a measurable difference to the terrible harm statistics we have in NZ. Right now it’s not.
7. What is the one thing you would like the audience to do when they leave the conference?
Check every day whether your work is going to make the most measurable difference to people’s health and safety at work. If it’s not – do something different.
GET IN CONTACT
Website: www.worksafe.govt.nz
Email: phil.parkes@worksafe.govt.nz
LinkedIn: Phil Parkes Chief Executive at WorkSafe New Zealand