Understanding Competence in Health and Safety

In New Zealand and Australia competence in health and safety is more than best practice; it’s a legal requirement. Whether you’re a director, manager, worker, or an advisor, competence plays a pivotal role in ensuring the safety and well-being of everyone in the workplace. In this article, we’ll delve into what competence means in the context of health and safety, emphasising its significance, complexity, and the specific areas where it’s most crucial.

What Is Competency And What Are The Legal Requirements?

Competence is an amalgamation of training, skills, experience, and knowledge that an individual possesses, along with their capacity to apply these attributes safely in the execution of tasks.

As an employer in Australia and New Zealand workplaces, it is essential to factor in the competence of your relevant employees during the process of conducting risk assessments. This consideration plays a pivotal role in determining the necessary levels of information, instruction, training, and supervision required to ensure all persons exposed to machinery risks can stay safe.

The level of competence required varies based on the specific role and the work environment. For instance workplace health and safety standards are context specific, the level of health and safety competence needed for an office setting differs from that required on a construction site. In a machine safety context – those that design of maintain machinery will need different levels or competency to those that operate it. Tailoring competence requirements to specific job roles and work settings ensures that safety measures remain both appropriate and effective.

In both Australia and New Zealand, as an employer, it is your obligation to designate a ‘competent person’ to assist you in fulfilling your health and safety responsibilities. In broader terms, a competent person is an individual who possesses the requisite skills, experience, and knowledge to effectively manage health and safety.  An organisations competent person may need to supplement matters with a competent external adviser where the organisations resources are not adequate.

According to Health and safety legislation an individual must have the training, skills, and experience necessary to be considered competent to perform specific tasks within particular industries or work environments. In the New Zealand context the Health and Safety at Work (General Risk and Workplace Management) Regulations 2016 outline the responsibilities of employers in regards to ensuring those assigned to certain tasks or areas of responsibility are competent or supported to become so through training. Competency is outlined in this legislation as:

(i) having adequate knowledge and experience of similar places, and work, plant, or substances of that kind, to ensure that the worker carrying out the work, using the plant, or dealing with the substance is not likely to adversely affect the health and safety or cause harm to the worker or any other person; or

(ii) is adequately supervised by a person who has that knowledge and experience; and

If the person is not competent as outlined above safety training programmes play a crucial role in raising the level of competency.

People And Competency

Competence Across The Board

Competence is not a one-size-fits-all concept. It applies to everyone involved in a workplace, from top-level directors and officers to front-line workers, however the specific requirements for each of these personnel differ depending on task and environment.

Directors/Officers, Managers And Workers All Need To Be Competent

Competence is not confined to any particular role or level within a company. Directors/officers, managers, and workers must all possess the necessary competence to navigate safety protocols effectively. Directors and officers set the tone for a culture of safety within the organisation, leading by example, as well as being required to implement health and safety legal regulations. In turn ensuring they support workers to become competent people in machine safety.

Managers play a pivotal role in implementing safety policies and ensuring their teams adhere to best practices. Frontline workers and machine operators are the ultimate beneficiaries of a competent leadership team, relying on their own competence to perform their tasks safely and carry out hazard identification. Together, the team creates a robust safety ecosystem, with competence serving as the foundation upon which they build a safer and healthier workplace.

The Continuous Learning Journey

Creating a culture of continuous improvement in safety, particularly in specialised fields like machine safety requires ongoing assessment and training, the acquisition of new skills, and accumulating valuable experience. Competence isn’t just about reaching a certain level; it’s about staying there and operating safety protocols for incident prevention – despite evolving standards and technologies, and changing workspaces and team dynamics.  Consultants in this space should be committed to Continuous Professional Development – membership to bodies like Engineering New Zealand and their ethical commitments may be one way this could be demonstrated.

The Role Of Advisors

Sometimes a key competency may be to know what you don’t know and acting on that by engaging an external adviser.

Management also needs to know how to select competent advisors to support their machine safety risk management activities. There are a range of considerations that must be taken into account when selecting or partnering with a competent advisor, you must carry out due diligence and vet consultants. In some instances it may be appropriate to request that their competency is demonstrated to complete the machine safety work.

For example – qualifications, work experience, sectors/industry that the consultant and representative organisation have worked in, or tools that they have experience in using.  While it may be slightly outside the scope of competency your due diligence activities should also include what/how the adviser will support you, so you get the most value.  The format of a report may make a substantial difference to your ongoing work.

The advisor must be able to fill gaps in your organisation, where the level of competency demonstrated internally may not be of an appropriate standard.  These might be areas of technical and specialist knowledge (such as machine guarding), know how, or tools, so your organisation can implement the required risk management activities. These gaps should be identified early when seeking a competent advisor, as it is critical that gaps are found and addressed, by the appropriate advisor.

Our team is skilled in all aspects of machine safety and reliability and can carry out a workplace safety assessment at your worksite. Each of our consultants holds safety certifications such as the internationally-recognised TUV qualification along with extensive and specialist experience as it relates to industry and machinery.

Our consultants are members of Engineering New Zealand, The NZ Society for Safety Engineering, New Zealand Institute of Safety Management – so we are committed to Continuous Professional Development (CPD) these organisations require. As well as winners of the Gold Award Gold Award at the 2021 ACE New Zealand Awards, in recognition of our technological innovation, know-how and data to manage critical risk in the meat industry. A Gold Award demonstrates exceptional service above and beyond expectations.

TEG Risk can also provide safety machine safety training to support your internal competency building programmes.

Specific Competencies Required in Certain Areas.

Some areas within safety engineering have highly specific competency and registration requirements. For example,

• specialised knowledge, qualifications and registrations are demanded by pressure equipment regulations.
• Specialised knowledge and certifications may be required for explosive atmospheres, the classification of these areas, and the installation/maintenance of plant electrical equipment in these areas.
• Hazardous substances may require occupational hygienists
• Machine safety may allow individuals to demonstrate competence through a combination of experience, training, qualifications e.g. engineering degrees and relevant certifications, such as TUV certifications.

Risk Assessments Require Competent People

Risk assessments must be carried out by competent people. These competent persons – whether internal or external – must be able to ascertain what training, supervision and information or risk minimisation actions are  required to minimise machinery and workplace health and safety risks from the supplier to the end user.

This especially applies to machine safety. The TEG Risk team hold adequate knowledge, experience, skills and training in the machine safety space.

This competency ensures that when TEG Risk assesses a workplace we are able to clearly the risk minimisation measures that need to be implemented to ensure a workplace is safe and compliant for all personnel.

The Importance Of Competence In Machine Safety

Machine safety is a complex, multi-faceted area covering control systems, mechanical engineering and human factors.  These are all relevant in the different life-cycle of a machine e.g. design, commissioning, operating, cleaning, and maintaining that machine considering both normal and abnormal circumstances.

Training, skills and experience is required for all roles at each lifecycle stage.

For operators and cleaners – Standard Operating Procedures combined with on the job training and supervision may provide sufficient competency.

At a more technical level, most organisations have gaps in machine safety understanding within their teams and it’s an area that is very difficult to stay competent in, and in these circumstances it’s advisable to engage a machine safety adviser.

Competence in health and safety is not only a legal requirement but a fundamental component of maintaining safe workplaces. It applies to everyone, from top to bottom, and encompasses a wide range of skills and knowledge. Especially in specialised fields like machine safety, achieving and maintaining competence demands ongoing assessments and learning. Management can benefit the entire team by creating a safety culture at their manufacturing site. TEG Risk are competent advisors who can help to identify gaps in knowledge and training within your team, and work with you to provide worker safety training and improve organisation wide health and safety competency.