Implementing health and safety so it sticks
accelerateonline • January 12, 2021
Have a health and safety policy and plan in place? Great! But how can you ensure everyone’s 100% on board? Here are four simple steps from Livewire HR to get your crew on the same page.
- Make it relatable. To engage staff in health and safety at work, they need to understand why health and safety is important (imagine they’re injured during a work day, how would it impact their life?), understand what health and safety is, how to do it properly (this requires regular training), and be involved in making decisions that impact their life and work.
- Keep it simple. Start with small things that are easy to implement, like team meetings with health and safety on the agenda, where you look at both physical and mental health.
- Have a ‘no blame policy’. If something happens, you want your staff to tell you so you can fix it, train them, or take appropriate action. Make sure they feel comfortable to tell you about a situation, even a near-miss.
- Strong leadership. If management doesn’t take health and safety seriously then their team won’t. Business owners need to be role modelling what good health and safety is. We need to be constantly learning about it (especially industry-specific health and safety), and filtering our learnings to our team. Sometimes having a conversation using open questions is more engaging than a PowerPoint presentation.
Accelerate - December 2023
Accelerate August 2023
Inland Revenue have recently announced this year’s livestock Herd Scheme Values and we think this is a great opportunity to update you on the latest movements. The Herd Scheme Values are the National Average Market Values, determined by a process involving a review of the livestock market as at 30 April.
The values for Dairy this year have seen a fall in values across all female classes, but increases across all male classes. The fall in R1 heifer values can be attributed to the prohibition of live export by sea commencing from 30 April 2023. For the first time the National Average Market Value for R1 Heifers is less than the National Standard Cost of breeding and rearing an R1 Heifer.
In contrast to Dairy values Beef values have increased on average 9% and are almost at record values for all classes.
Sheep values have all fallen from the high of 2022, slipping back an average of 10.2%. Whilst values have fallen, they are still either the second or third highest that they have ever been depending on which class of sheep you are looking at.
Goat values have increased on average 7.8% with almost all classes of fibre and meat producing goats at record highs. The value of milking goats continues to be well down from historic highs, except for breeding bucks which are at their highest value.
Like the rest of the world, New Zealand has reeled from the aftermath of Covid, rising inflation and interest rates, and the cost-of-living crisis. This year we also have a massive storm damage repair bill.
Any tax cuts, or changes to the tax thresholds were vetoed in Budget 2023 as this was viewed as worsening inflation.
Budget 2023 builds on the $889m already provided in response to this year’s storms. A further $6b is allocated for a National Resilience Plan , for rebuilding after weather events. $71b is committed to new and existing infrastructure projects: not only storm damaged communications, power and roading, but schools, hospitals, public housing, rail and road.
