SafePlus onsite assessment and advice from an accredited assessor.
SafePlus looks at how health and safety actually works in an organisation, beyond what the paperwork says. Rob Feasey, principal of QHSE, is a SafePlus Accredited Assessor.
A different kind of assessment
SafePlus was developed by WorkSafe New Zealand, ACC and MBIE as the national approach to improving health and safety performance. It goes well beyond a paper-based compliance audit. An accredited assessor spends time in the organisation talking to people at every level, watching work being done and following the threads that come up, then rates the organisation against ten performance requirements and gives it tailored advice on where to improve.
The ten requirements sit under three capability areas: leadership, worker engagement and risk management, with continuous improvement running through all of them. Together they describe what good looks like in a way that applies to any organisation in any industry, from a single workshop to a national operation.
The difference from an audit is what it finds. An audit tells you whether the documented system is followed. SafePlus tells you whether the system is the right one, whether people believe in it, whether leaders are actually leading it, and whether the risks that could kill or seriously harm someone are being controlled in practice.
The ten performance requirements
Leadership
- Effective governance and leadership in health and safety.
- Senior leaders visibly demonstrate commitment through their actions.
- The business strives to continually improve practice and performance.
- The business resources health and safety activities.
Worker engagement
- The business communicates effectively.
- The business engages with, and empowers, workers and representatives.
Risk management, with workers and their representatives
- Identifies work-related health risks and safety risks.
- Assesses health risks and safety risks.
- Takes a proportionate approach to controlling them.
- Ensures controls are effective.
How an assessment runs
The same shape every time, sized to the organisation. A small business of under fifty people is usually about three assessor days. A mid-sized organisation is five to eight. A large or multi-site organisation takes longer and is scoped accordingly. A fixed fee wherever possible, quoted in writing once the scope is agreed.
Scope
A conversation with leadership about the organisation, its sites and its people, and agreement on the three critical risks the assessment will look at most closely.
Look
A read of the documents that matter, then time on site: interviews with governance, senior leaders, managers, workers and contractors, in groups and one to one, and observation of the work as it is really done.
Dig
Deep dives into the three critical risks: what the controls are meant to be, whether they are in place, whether they work, and what the people relying on them think of them.
Rate
A maturity rating against each of the ten performance requirements, from developing through performing to leading, with the evidence behind each rating.
Advise
A written assessor report setting out strengths, where to improve and how, presented in person to the leadership team so it can be discussed rather than filed.
What SafePlus finds that an audit does not
- Where the documented system and the real one have parted company, and why.
- Whether leaders are seen to lead safety, and what workers make of that.
- Whether workers have a say, and whether anything they raise comes back to them.
- Whether the critical risks are the ones the organisation is actually managing, and whether the controls hold up on the day.
- Health risks that never make the register: fatigue, noise, chemicals, manual handling, the pressure people are working under.
- Good practice nobody has written down, which is easily missed at audit and matters a great deal in an investigation.
When organisations use it
For the board or the officers, as independent assurance that goes further than injury statistics. After a restructure, a merger or a serious event. As a benchmark to repeat every two or three years and see what has moved. And ahead of the HSWA changes on 1 April 2027, to see whether the critical risks are known and controlled before the law sharpens its focus on them.
Discuss an assessmentSafePlus in the sectors QHSE works in
The ten requirements are the same everywhere. What changes is the critical risks chosen for the deep dives and the questions asked of each cohort.
Aviation
Run alongside the SMS and HSWA gap analysis. Each performance requirement is mapped to the SMS elements it relates to, so the operator sees where the SMS covers it, where practice does, and where neither does. Deep dives usually take in one flying risk and two ground-side ones.
Government and local government
Assessments across the whole range of council or agency activity, with deep dives typically on contractor management, lone and field work, and psychosocial risk. Findings written for elected members and boards as well as executives.
Food and beverage manufacturing
Deep dives on machinery, mobile plant and traffic, and shift work, with the assessment run across all shifts so the night crew is heard as well as the day.
Roading and infrastructure
Mobile plant, live traffic, excavation and multiple contractors on changing sites, assessed on site rather than in the office.
General manufacturing and engineering
Machinery, lifting, hot work and hazardous substances in businesses with lean management teams, sized so a small firm gets the same rigour without the overhead.
Questions people ask
How is SafePlus different from an audit?
An audit checks whether the documented system is being followed. SafePlus asks whether the system is the right one and whether it works in practice, by interviewing people at every level, observing the work and following up what comes out. It rates the organisation against ten performance requirements and gives advice on what to improve, rather than a list of non-conformances.
How long does it take, and what does it cost?
A small business of under fifty people is usually about three assessor days. A mid-sized organisation is five to eight. Larger or multi-site organisations take longer and are scoped accordingly. A fixed fee wherever possible, quoted in writing once the scope is agreed. Travel throughout New Zealand is included in the quote.
Who gets interviewed, and is it confidential?
Governance, senior leaders, managers, workers and contractors where they matter, in groups and one to one. Interviews are reported by group, with particular care where a group is small. The report is written for you and belongs to you.
Does WorkSafe see the result?
The assessor report is written for you and belongs to you. What you do with it, including sharing it with your board, your insurer or a customer, is your decision.
What do we get at the end?
A written assessor report with a maturity rating against each of the ten performance requirements, the evidence behind each rating, the strengths worth keeping, and practical advice on where to improve and how. It is presented in person to the leadership team so it can be discussed rather than filed.
Can we repeat it?
Yes, and organisations that get the most from SafePlus treat it as a benchmark and repeat it every two or three years. The second assessment shows what has moved, which is the evidence a board or officer needs that the investment in health and safety is doing something.
Find out how it is really going.
Get in touch and describe the organisation. QHSE will tell you what a SafePlus assessment would involve for you, how long it would take and what it would cost.