Understanding how attitudes and behaviours contribute to injury and harm in New Zealand workplaces is key to improving health and safety practices so everyone comes home healthy and safe.
The only way to get this understanding is to ask workers and employers about their views and what happens in their workplaces. To get this information, WorkSafe commissioned the research company Nielsen to carry out a comprehensive questionnaire survey, as part of a three-year survey programme (from 2014-2016).
Over 3,700 workers and over 1,900 employers took part in the 2014 survey. The survey focussed on four high-risk sectors - agriculture, forestry, construction and manufacturing. It also included commercial fishing, a high-risk sector that is the responsibility of Maritime New Zealand (a part-funder of the 2014 survey). Workers and employers from other lower-risk occupations were included to provide a comparison sector.
As well as the survey, initial research explored health and safety from the point of view of a small number of workers and employers to help design the questionnaire survey and inform the way we communicate health and safety messages.
Results are available in a series of reports. A factsheet summarises the key conclusions and you can also read Frequently Asked Questions about the survey. The Technical Report describes how the survey was carried out and includes the survey questionnaires.