New business owners encounter health and safety as either an intimidating body of law or a folder of templates sold to them by a consultant. Neither is what the Act actually requires.
What the duty actually says
A PCBU must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of workers and of others affected by the work. You are a PCBU from the day you start operating, whether or not you employ anyone.
“Reasonably practicable” scales. A two-person office and a demolition contractor have the same duty and vastly different obligations, because the risks differ.
Start with the risks that could kill or seriously injure
The most common error in small business health and safety is treating all hazards as equal. A paper cut and an unguarded machine both go on the register, get the same attention, and the register becomes noise.
Identify the small number of things in your operation that could realistically cause death or serious harm. In most New Zealand small businesses these come from:
- Vehicles — driving for work is the largest single source of work-related death across the economy.
- Falls from height, including from low heights.
- Machinery and moving plant.
- Electricity.
- Hazardous substances, including ordinary cleaning and workshop chemicals.
- Violence and aggression, in any customer-facing role.
- Psychosocial risk — workload, bullying, isolation.
Control those properly. Everything else can be proportionate.
Control means changing the work, not writing a rule
The hierarchy matters and its order reflects effectiveness. Eliminate the hazard where you can — work at ground level, buy the substance in a safer form, remove the task. Then engineering controls: guards, edge protection, barriers. Then administrative controls and PPE, which depend on people remembering.
A business whose entire response to a serious risk is a procedure and safety glasses has chosen the weakest available controls.
The minimum documentation
Enough to show what you identified, what you did, and that you checked:
- A short risk register covering the serious risks and their controls.
- Safe operating procedures for the genuinely hazardous tasks — brief, practical, written for the person doing the job.
- Training and induction records.
- Equipment maintenance and inspection records.
- An incident and near-miss record.
- Hazardous substances inventory and safety data sheets, if you hold any.
That is a folder, not a management system, and it is adequate for most small businesses.
Worker engagement is a duty
You must engage with workers on health and safety matters and have practices for their effective participation. In a small business this is a conversation rather than a committee — and the people doing the work know where the risks are and which controls are impractical.
Contractors and other businesses
Where more than one PCBU has a duty over the same matter, each must consult, cooperate and coordinate. You cannot contract out of a duty by engaging a subcontractor, and a principal retains duties for work it influences.
If you work on other people’s sites, expect to provide evidence of your system. If others work on yours, brief them on your hazards and record that you did.
Notifiable events
Certain deaths, injuries, illnesses and incidents must be notified to WorkSafe as soon as possible, and the site generally preserved until an inspector says otherwise.
The category most often missed is notifiable incidents, where nobody was hurt — an uncontrolled fire, an electric shock, something falling from height. Post a short list of the categories where supervisors will see it, and make clear that when in doubt, notify.
Directors
If you are a company director you hold personal due diligence duties that cannot be delegated or insured. Fines under the Act cannot be insured against, which is deliberate.
WorkSafe publishes free small business guidance and templates at worksafe.govt.nz. It is written for operators rather than compliance specialists, and it is a better starting point than a purchased system.
General information only, not legal advice.
