Page 104 - Build 161

Departments/Health and safety By Alisa Yong, Communications Advisor, Site Safe New Zealand Inc.
United on safety
Safety on site is set to get simpler, as some of New Zealand’s biggest commercial construction companies join forces to standardise health and safety requirements.
Representatives from New Zealand’s biggest construction rms watch as Rick Herd from Naylor Love signs the commitment to standardising health and safety.
SAFETY GEAR, subcontractor prequali cation and alcohol and drug testing are just some of the health and safety topics under the spotlight as part of a new nationwide initiative aiming to standardise safety on site.
Consistent approach across sites
The initiative, which is backed by some of New Zealand’s biggest commercial construction companies, plans to get rid of inconsistent approaches to health and safety.
Arrow International, Cassidy Construction, Dominion Constructors, Fletcher Construction, Hawkins Construction, Leighs Construction,
Naylor Love and NZ Strong have joined forces on the idea. Assisted by Site Safe, they have pledged to work towards making their health and safety requirements easier to follow across sites operated by di erent main contractors.
Unique challenges
Naylor Love Chief Executive Rick Herd said the commercial sector had made real progress in raising health and safety standards over the past few years. However, it still faces some unique challenges, including many specialist subcontractors and a large range of trades on site.
‘There is a predominance of manual labour, hand tools, hazardous substances and a greater number of people involved on each project exposed to a greater range of risks. With the current levels of growth in construction, there are large numbers of new recruits and relatively inexperienced people joining the sector, including immigrants who may introduce culture and language challenges.
‘We recognise there are some challenges that we must face to ensure that we continue to improve performance and everyone goes home safe and healthy at the end of each day.’
Eliminating confusion across construction sites
One such challenge was health and safety requirements, which could often vary from one main contractor’s site to another, Rick said.
102 — August/September 2017 — Build 161