How Safe Are We? Programme

Introduction

How can a business be sure it has truly fulfilled its health and safety obligations as an employer?

PaMPITO’s HOW SAFE ARE WE? programme uses nationally recognised qualifications as benchmarks for assessing employees’ skills and competencies in health and safety. The programme identifies what employees already know and do in relation to these benchmarks and where they might need more training. By identifying the skills you have you can assess How Safe You Are and what further action might be required.

Benefits of the HOW SAFE ARE WE? programme

It provides a structure to your company’s health and safety practices. Using nationally recognised standards give you a strong framework upon which you can base your health and safety system.

Using the HOW SAFE ARE WE? programme is like putting your health and safety processes through a Warrant of Fitness test. Do your practices match up? Are you as safe as you think you are? It tells you how effective your health and safety system is.

The HOW SAFE ARE WE? programme recognises your employees for the skills they already have and pin-points areas for further development.

It can also assist your company with external compliance requirements.

The Qualifications

There are three National Certificates that can be used as benchmarks:

Qualification	For :
National Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety (Workplace Safety) level 1	All employees, no matter what their role is
The National Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety (Workplace Safety) level 3	Employees in supervisory positions or who are involved in managing health and safety
The National Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety (Coordination) level 4	Employees in a leadership role who have overall responsibility for co-ordinating and managing health and safety initiatives

What would it say about your company if every employee
had a National Certificate in Health and Safety

How it works

In 2009 and 2010 PaMPITO is offering the HOW SAFE ARE WE? programme free of charge.

FEASIBILITY

We’ll take a snapshot of what you do for health and safety as a company. This will involve reviewing some of your documents and having a site tour. We’ll provide you with a short report of our findings.

DECIDE WHO AND WHAT

To get going, we’ll need a list of the employees whose skills you’d like to recognise. We’ll check out their records of learning with NZQA and agree with you which qualifications and standards will be used. We’ll then produce all the necessary checklists to start gathering evidence.

COLLECTION OF COMPANY-WIDE EVIDENCE

If you already have strong health and safety practices in your workplace then it’s likely you’ll already have some evidence in your system that demonstrates your employees’ competence. We’ll identify this “company-wide evidence” to start off with.

INDIVIDUAL PORTFOLIO OF EVIDENCE

Each participant will compile a portfolio of evidence of competence. All the evidence gathered in the step above will be added to each individual’s portfolio. We’ll assist each person to identify the remaining evidence they need to show competence for a qualification. If they have skill gaps you’ll be able to pin-point these and we can advise on any training opportunities where necessary. Involving your employees in gathering their own evidence reinforces their skills and shows them your company is serious about health and safety.

Next Steps

The programme takes place over 9 – 12 months, so that it doesn’t intrude on your day to day business. We’ll visit regularly and keep it moving forward. For further information or to make an appointment to see your PaMPITO Training Services Manager contact us on 09 254 4877 or email: info@pampito.org.nz