HEALTH, SAFETY AND WELLNESS —
Overlapping duties – who’s responsible for what? It takes a team to build a house. Health and safety takes teamwork too. Here’s a how-to-guide on shared responsibilities. When might duties overlap?
A Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU) is essentially any business doing work of any sort. PCBU’s are required to ensure the health and safety of workers, other contractors, or visitors who might be affected by work operations.
Duties can overlap in a shared workplace where more than one business and its workers influence the work on-site. Another example of overlapping duties might be in a contracting chain, where contractors and subcontractors provide services to a head contractor (or client) and don’t necessarily share the same workplace.
If you are the main contractor engaging contractors, then ‘workers’ will include not just your direct employees but all engaged workers including other PCBU’s employees.
For example, a builder calls a supplier for some material to be dropped off to site, they coordinate that a HIAB is the best way to deliver the goods. The builder will communicate via a Toolbox Meeting to the team that the materials will be delivered, to create a clear stable area for drop off, and to keep clear of the HIAB while offloading.
When it comes to overlapping duties, businesses need to consult, coordinate and cooperate so they can all meet their shared responsibilities. Some examples of duties you are likely to share, include; Primary duty of PCBUs Ensure that the health and safety of workers and other people are not put at risk by your work.
Understanding the extent of your duty
Managing risk Eliminate risks that arise from your work. If the risk cannot be eliminated, minimise it. Worker engagement, participation and representation Ensure that workers can raise concerns and express their views on work health and safety matters and that those views are taken into account. Notification If a notifiable event occurs, you must notify WorkSafe as soon as you become aware of the event.
When there are overlapping duties on-site, how do you determine the extent of your duty? You will need to consider the extent to which you can influence or control the risk in question. This can be determined by considering the following: Control over the work activity – if you are the business managing or running the work being undertaken Control over the site – if you are the main contractor or subcontractor Control over your team – a business will have more control over its own team or contractors than others on-site
First aid Ensure that your workers have access to first aid equipment and trained first aiders. If you share a workplace with other PCBUs, you can coordinate sharing first aid resources with them. Emergency plans You have a duty to prepare, maintain and implement an emergency plan at your work. Consult, cooperate and coordinate with other PCBUs that you share overlapping duties with to coordinate emergency procedures. *These listed duties are not in their entirety and have been simplified for readability. This is not a full list of duties, it is important to make yourself familiar with health and safety duties. WorkSafe has useful information at www.worksafe.govt.nz, or talk to our Advisory team on 0800 555 339 if you have any questions.
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Ultimately, the more influence and control you have over the site or workers, the more control you have over the risk – the more responsibility you have.
