As of 4 April 2016 the Health & Safety at Work Act 2015 came into force, replacing the Health & Safety in Employment Act 1992. We have included some information below about what these changes will mean for our clients and for our suppliers/tradespeople/creditors, along with the steps that apm are taking in order to ensure that we are compliant with the new Act.

The Purpose of the Act

The main purpose of the Act, as detailed in s3(1), is to provide for a balanced framework to secure the health and safety of workers and workplaces by;

• protecting workers and other persons against harm to their health, safety, and welfare by eliminating or minimising risks arising from work or from prescribed high-risk plant; and
• providing for fair and effective workplace representation, consultation, co-operation, and resolution of issues in relation to work health and safety; and
• encouraging unions and employer organisations to take a constructive role in promoting improvements in work health and safety practices, and assisting PCBUs and workers to achieve a healthier and safer working environment; and
• promoting the provision of advice, information, education, and training in relation to work health and safety; and
• securing compliance with this Act through effective and appropriate compliance and enforcement measures; and
• ensuring appropriate scrutiny and review of actions taken by persons performing functions or exercising powers under this Act; and
• providing a framework for continuous improvement and progressively higher standards of work health and safety.

Subsection (1)(a), outlines the principle that workers and other persons should be given the highest level of protection against harm to their health, safety, and welfare from hazards and risks arising from work or from specified types of plant as is reasonably practicable.

What does this mean for clients of apm?

The apm Workplace Safety Management Plan (“Safety Plan”) is our commitment to property management health and safety and keeping our entire team safe in the work place. We will now formalise our existing care plan to take all reasonable steps to ensure that we comply with our health and safety obligations. This includes staying up to date on health and safety issues, understanding the nature of our operations (office and meeting space venue, property inspections/viewings) and the hazards and risks that come with them.

We must make sure that there are appropriate resources and processes to eliminate or minimise those risks including off-site safety for property managers doing inspections of their properties. We will do this as a team on an on-going basis, identifying any hazards in our workplace, offsite work environments, and in our daily roles whatever they require particularly around property management.

We are now using a company called Maintenance Manager to manage all quotes, work orders and verification of tradespeople, to ensure that Auckland Property Management as well as all of our creditors are compliant with the new Act. Maintenance Manager stores all information about our tradespeople, including all relevant documentation required under the Health & Safety at Work Act 2015.

We are confident that we are taking all reasonably practical steps to ensure that we comply with the new Act and we will continue to monitor these processes as time passes and the impact of the Act becomes clearer.

Please email any queries to apm Health & Safety – health&[email protected]

What does this mean for suppliers, tradespeople and creditors of apm?

As an existing creditor for apm, you will have already received an email from our Health & Safety Officer requesting certain documentation as required under the Act. This information has been passed on to Maintenance Manager, and they now oversee this process.

The documentation required under the Health & Safety at Work Act 2015 is as follows;

• Registration
• Terms of Agreement
• Public Liability Insurance
• Professional Indemnity Insurance (if providing advice)
• ACC Accreditation or Health & Safety Policy
• Worksafe Document (if required – for heights, etc)
• The Act dictates to us that these documents are required if you wish to continue working with apm.

New Creditors

If you are a new creditor with apm you will be required to send the above information to Maintenance Manger before our Managers can send you a work order as we need to ensure that you are compliant with the new Act before we can agree to use you as a creditor. The first work order we send you will include an invitation to join Maintenance Manager. Note that you cannot join Maintenance Manager without being invited.

These regulations are new for all of us and it is our intention to work through the implementation stage as quickly and seamlessly as possible.

Find out for yourself how the award-winning professionals at apm can help you with your property. Give us a call today on: (09) 638 2500 Or, simply fill in the form below and one of our team will be in touch.