Survey Reveals 'It won't happen to me attitude'
26 Jun 2015
'It won't happen to me' attitude is strong among workers and employers in New Zealand.
The 2014 Health and Safety Attitudes and Behaviours in the New Zealand Workforce survey was a collaboration between WorkSafe New Zealand and Maritime New Zealand. It identified New Zealand's high risk industries which include agriculture, construction, forestry, manufacturing and commercial fishing.
The Health and Safety Attitudes and Behaviours in the New Zealand Workforce survey showed that more than one-in-five workers in high risk industries said they had experienced a serious incident in the last 12 months.
When asked if they thought there was at least a 'moderate risk' of a worker/workmate getting seriously hurt in the next year, 17% of workers and just 6% of employers thought so. While acknowledging they work in risky industries, the 'it won't happen to me or my workmates' view is strong.
The survey showed that while workers and employers say health and safety is a priority, it needs to be higher to improve on New Zealand's poor health and safety workplace performance which is twice as bad as Australia's and four times worse than the UK.
Half of employers said health and safety was one of their top three considerations while it was one of the top three for just a third of workers.
Some good practice is occurring with workers and employers taking steps to prevent accidents from happening by focusing on using equipment and machinery safely, talking about health and safety and getting health and safety training.