Key Insight #1 Health and safety capability is a journey and an employer s needs change over time Key Insight #2 Keeping people healthy and safe is good for business Key Insight #3 Growing the culture requires authentic and powerful leadership Every employer is on a health and safety journey. Every employer is at a different stage along their journey, their triggers for starting or accelerating the journey vary, and the pace at which they can grow their capability is dependent on their own specific situation and priorities. The journey takes time. An employer s needs change over time, in terms of taking the next step along the journey. For example, initially the priority might be to reduce the serious incidents, before focusing on less serious injurie s, before eventually starting to focus on wellness and health. To incentivise a faster rate of change, the incentives need to align with the current needs of the employer. "We've made significant improvements, but we can't keep moving at the same speed, it's a resource issue. "Our business is changing constantly. "Success is employers understanding incentives, caring about H&S, and knowing what to do to improve. Actuarial expert While they re welcomed, the existing levy discount incentives in many cases are insignificant relative to the full costs to business of people having time off work. The business disruption and inefficiency that is created from time off work is a significant cost. When quantified, this cost of disruption becomes a powerful incentive to invest further in improving health and safety outcomes. "Legislation won't grow your business. A culture of care will." "Rewards save $$$, incentives save lives, lower the risk" Health and safety practitioners acknowledge that they can t drive the change they are seeking without leadership and role modeling from senior business leaders. It is about much more than the CEO signing a health and safety policy. It is about the CEO and others placing the health and safety agenda at the heart of the business priorities, and being the greatest champion within the business for why it matters. "Good H&S is leaders taking responsibility for H&S." "It's an ethical issue to keep organisations safe" Academic expert "I would have walked away without Board and CEO support." "Give safety a name, give it a face"
Key Insight #4 Reputation is a key motivator for businesses; having a way to demonstrate it is gold Key Insight #5 s have a vested interest in a quick return to work, but it is not always easy Key Insight #6 Forming partnerships unlocks greater value This plays out on many levels. s source talent from local communities. They attract investment from the investment community. They want to retain their valuable and contributing employees. They sell their services and products to customers. They are deeply aware of the impact of a poor or outstanding health and safety record on perceptions of people, and the resulting impact on the business of a poor reputation. Having ways to tangibly represent their performance record is immensely valuable. "Reputation is important to staff, customers, community, and stakeholders." "We want Mum's and Dad's, and career counsellors to say 'that's a good place to work'." Many employers feel like they are not treated as a partner in the process. If engaged early, they see a beneficial role they can play to achieve win-win-win outcomes for ACC, the employee and the employer. s who are well along their health & safety journey are partnering with the medical and therapist community to tailor return to work plans to suit the individual. Specific pain points include inability to access information and lack of recognition of part-time return to work. "Employees return to work earlier under AEP because employers are more involved in the process." Third Party Administrator For employers that are well advanced along their health and safety journey, the focus is quickly shifting to the efficiencies that can be gained by true partnerships. Potential gains from the employer's efforts alone are diminishing. The greater value is in partnering with subcontractors, with clients, with employees, with medical professionals, with ACC, etc. "We're quite proactive. If something is going to impact our clients we'll go out to them and say it's going to impact you - what are you going to do about it?" Small Business Advisor "We realised we need to partner with others to get what we want, it's not about masterslave relationships."
Key Insight #7 A change in outcomes requires a focus on practices and culture Many employers are frustrated by a focus on compliance, i.e. do I have the appropriate documentation in place? They want to see a focus on behaviours, i.e. do I have the practices and culture to underpin our health and safety efforts? s that are at the more mature end of their health and safety journey are finding ways to encourage their managers and employees to take personal accountability for keeping themselves and others safe and healthy. They are focusing on unsafe behaviors rather than looking only at the injuries and near misses. This shift in focus also avoids the complacency that can come from being good at 'complying'. "H&S is about having conversations... parents don't get a manual or checklist and they keep their children safe." "H&S should not be a tick-box, people should know automatically what to do to prevent injuries." "When the guys on the floor are suggesting changes, that's when the system is mature." Key Insight #8 Information and data makes the case for investment an easier sell Many businesses have very tight margins. A dollar invested in health & safety is a dollar not invested elsewhere. Management teams need to see a return on that investment. There is a lot of pressure on health and safety practitioners to show the value to gain management buy-in at the outset, and then to show that the expected value is in fact being delivered. But often the practitioners feel starved of realtime and relevant data/information to support their case. "I need the reasoning more than the money, to do Health and Safety." "When looking to sell something to the leadership team, money does talk." Key Insight #9 Each step on the journey needs to be attainable It can be daunting for employers to know where to start, or what to do next, in terms of building their health and safety capability. They respond well when the barriers to getting started or taking the next step are low, and when there are plenty of signals along the way that are reinforcing they are making progress and can celebrate their progress. Sometimes this means having someone alongside to support, rather than waving a 'stick'. "Rather than penalise, help businesses by providing tools, guidance, and material." Academic expert "Don't eat the whole elephant it's a long game" "Success is employers understanding incentives, caring about H&S, and knowing what to do to improve." Actuarial expert
Key Insight #10 Workplace Levies feel like a tax, not an insurance To employers, the levy feels more like a tax rather than buying an insurance product. A tax is about a one-way relationship. Buying a service is about receiving value for your investment. The impact is that many employers feel that they don't have choice and control with respect to the size of their levy, meaning that any incentive products have limited potential to motivate changes in behaviour. "Right now, it's not a partnership, ACC just takes." Key Insight #11 Incentive products need to work together and fit within the wider system s spoke of the confusion created by mixed messages. For example, at the same time that an employer receives a discount from one ACC incentive products, another incentive product can apply a loading. s are left wondering if they are a good performer or a poor one. More broadly, ACC's levies and incentives are only a small part of the employer's broader system and there needs to be understanding of the role of the incentives within that. "An ideal incentive should never be financial, that's nice but it shouldn't be the key motivator" Key Insight #12 Fairness is critical Perceptions of fairness of a scheme are critical for maximising the motivation that results from the incentive. Lack of fairness across many factors is a significant critique of the current scheme. Examples highlighted by employers include: cross-subsidising poor performers in my industry group, discrepancies in risk categories, other employers burying poor outcomes in the sub-contractor network, having an isolated incident that was beyond our control counting against us for 3 years, incentivising compliance with legislation, having a single risk classification for our business when we have pockets of extremely low risk and extremely high risk, dodgy operators who start new businesses to refresh their experience rating, investing heavily as an industry leader but our competitors get ACC help to catch up, etc. "It would be good to be measured on our own performance." "Use a big dose of commercial reality when developing ACC products" - Industry association "Many are doing the easy stuff, not with genuine intent."
Key Insight #13 The stronger the link between action and reward, the greater the incentive Key Insight #14 Non-work injuries and illnesses impact on business performance as well Key Insight #15 Value-add from ACC can take many forms Because the employer is carrying a greater share of the risk and liability within the Accredited s Programme, with more 'skin in the game', the costs of getting it wrong as well as the benefits of getting it right are much more visible and present. This is also an incentive to invest more time and effort in developing strong employer-employee relationships. The same principles apply to other employers as well. "Self insurance is the ultimate incentive for health & safety improvement." "Allow ownership as close to the source as possible" ACC s existing incentive products focus only on workplace injuries and illness. But the impact on business performance from a nonwork injury/illness can be just as great as a work injury/illness. For many businesses, the sheer scale of non-work injuries/illnesses relative to work ones means that their impact on business performance is much greater. The aging workforce contributes to this. Some employers are frustrated by employees seemingly claiming non-work injuries as work ones due to a perception that they re move likely to be covered. And increasingly, employers are focusing on ways to help their employees keep safe and health outside of the workplace. "The aging workforce is a big challenge." "It's difficult to talk to ACC about non-work injuries - we're not entitled to that information." There are many bright spots within the current ACC products and services. Having a relationship manager helps employers navigate ACC and to helps them see opportunities to develop their health and safety capability. Having a single point of contact for claims management reduces the burden of having to deal with multiple people across multiple claims. The tools within the Workplace Safety Management Discount programme are information and helpful. And training for accountants/advisors enables them to advise employers appropriately. Business owners perceive themselves as super busy, they're not going to take a day off for H&S training, they can't afford that time" Accountant
Key Insight #16 The complexity of experience rating limits its effectiveness as an incentive Even knowledgeable people can t be confident that they understand how the experience rating calculations work. Without an understanding of how it works, and therefore how I can impact the inputs to the calculation, there is a tendency for business leaders to be resigned to it is what it is. It is not sufficient to be technically pure, it needs to be easily understood. It s an interesting figure, but what does it mean? "Levy groupings are quite confusing" Industry association "Levy classifications don't make sense." Industry association Key Insight #17 A high administrative burden can be a disincentive to engage Businesses operate in a tight commercial environment. Managers have many competing demands and are time poor. A high administrative burden can reduce the incentive to engage. For example, for employers in the Accredited s Programme a major pain point is the administrative burden associated with audits across the programme and other standards. "I curl up whenever we have to deal with ACC" Key Insight #18 Levy discounts incentivise accountants more than the people improving health and safety outcomes While many health and safety practitioners were highly knowledgeable about the levies that their employer was paying, and their current experience rating, it was interesting that many were not. A source of frustration for the practitioners is that a levy discount doesn't necessarily flow directly back into their operating budget to take the business to the next level in terms of health and safety maturity. "People just don't have the cover in place they bury their heads in the sand and go 'she'll be right'" Accountant "NZ has paper based safety, as opposed to safety conversations/cult ure" Large employer