Secure the health and safety of your workers and workplaces the EZHR way

Periodically monitor your PCBU's placement on the compliance continuum (for free!)

Implement and continuously improve effective systematic hazards and risks management

An impactful way to strengthen the performance of New Zealand's health and safety system is to enable every PCBU operating within the system to master compliance with the fundamentals of managing risks. The common denominator in every workplace fatality and serious harm occurrence is the failure to effectively manage the risks associated with exposure to a workplace hazard. It follows that the best way to prevent workplace harm is to ensure the ones exposed to workplace hazards have the means, motive, and opportunity to participate meaningfully in effectively managing the risks associated with their exposure. Achieving that comes down to how effective the PCBU's health and safety management system (HSMS) is at aligning what's required to be done under the law with what's actually being done on the ground.

The EZHR System is a people management system. A hallmark of the EZHR System is the HR8 Health and Safety at Work component and its emphasis on empowering end users to achieve what's most important for securing the health and safety of workers and workplaces. What's most important is to follow the law and its requirements to identify hazards and manage risks.

The EZHR System includes enabling tools to support end users master compliance with the fundamentals of risks management. A sample of some of these tools (but not all of them) can be viewed below (click on the image to download). To access all the tools sign-up as a licenced EZHR System user and join our revolution to standardise people management good practice across the business sector.

The main purpose of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 ("HSWA") is to provide for a balanced framework to secure the health and safety of workers and workplaces through a range of means, including by eliminating or minimising risks to health and safety arising from work. It follows that the best way to secure the health and safety of workers and workplaces is to comply with law designed for that exact purpose.

Developed by business systems engineer and work health and safety theorist Henry Koia, Koia’s Risk Management Compliance Continuum Model (shown above) identifies the variables that influence a PCBU’s performance in complying with the duties of a PCBU to:

(1) manage risks effectively

(2) train workers to manage risks effectively, and

(3) provide reasonable opportunities for workers to participate effectively in managing risks ("the three duties")

Koia’s model is based on his theory that a continuum exists between non-compliance at one end of the continuum, and full compliance at the other end. According to Koia’s theory, every PCBU sits somewhere on the compliance continuum at any given point in time.‘Legal compliance demonstrated’ (“LCD”) is the test Koia applies to determine a PCBU’s placement on the compliance continuum at any given point in time.

Koia has developed a LCD rating tool to help PCBUs self-assess where they sit on the compliance continuum. The purpose of the assessment is to help PCBUs identify areas for improvement in complying with the three duties by detecting compliance gaps. Detecting and closing compliance gaps is the key to ensuring officers of a PCBU are compliant with an officer's duty under section 44(4)(e) HSWA to ensure the PCBU has, an implements, processes for complying with the three duties.

Koia's LCD Rating Tool is available to the public for free on the condition that the template can only be downloaded from this website (meaning a user is prohibited from forwarding the template on to a third party, but may refer the third party to this website). To find out where your PCBU currently sits on the compliance continuum, download the User Guide and rating tool by clicking on the images below.