H&S and Pre-Employment Assessments

With the introduction of New Zealand’s Health & Safety at Work Act (2015) aimed at managing workplace risks and the pleasing trend towards focusing on workplace wellbeing, most organisations are committed to reducing health and safety incidents and workplace accidents.  One of the key contributors to managing workplace risks is to ensure relevant and fit-for-purpose polices and testing/assessments exist.

While we’re on the topic of policies, according to Glenn Dobson, CEO of The Drug Detection Agency (TDDA), his recent article explains how “Drug and alcohol policies in workplaces need to be a “living document” in the wake of shifting trends in drug accessibility and case law in New Zealand”.  This differs to old-school thinking of writing a Drug and Alcohol policy and leaving it to gather dust in the H&S folder.

Part of the Drug and Alcohol policy may include pre-employment testing and amidst the suite of pre employment checks, tests and services for potential new hires, Rural Directions also offers The Health & Safety Indicator Test (H&SI).  The H&SI test assesses a range of ability and personality characteristics that represent an individual’s tendency towards safe behaviour in the workplace, which sits nicely alongside drug testing undertakings as part of the recruitment process.

As more and more of our clients choose to test the capability and personality of potential new hires as a pre-employment tool, a H&S assessment helps to mitigate employees entering a business who have the potential to put themselves and others at risk in the workplace. Fundamentally, the Health & Safety at Work Act requires proactive identification and management of risks, so everyone is safe and healthy. People at all levels of a business have the responsibility and everyone needs to work together on health and safety.

Contact the Rural Directions team to find out how you can incorporate pre-employment assessments into your recruitment process.

Email:  recruitment@ruraldirections.co.nz or phone us on tel:  06 871 0450

Click HERE to view our pre-employment checks, tests and services.