The Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (HSWA) sets out clear expectations for how New Zealand businesses manage health and safety. While the Act is principle-based rather than prescriptive, the responsibility it places on businesses, officers, and workers is significant.
For many organisations, the challenge isn’t understanding that they have duties — it’s turning those duties into practical, repeatable systems that actually work day to day.
That’s where EZICHEQ fits to be a great solution to manage Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 outcomes.
Rather than adding more paperwork or complexity, EZICHEQ helps businesses demonstrate visibility, consistency, and evidence across their health and safety systems — supporting the outcomes the HSWA is designed to achieve.
HSWA focuses less on ticking boxes and more on whether businesses can show they are actively managing risk. Inspectors, auditors, and investigators are looking for answers to simple but critical questions:
EZICHEQ is designed to help answer those questions with confidence.
Under Section 36, a PCBU must ensure, so far as reasonably practicable, the health and safety of workers. This includes providing safe systems of work, safe plant and structures, and ongoing monitoring of conditions.
In practice, this means having more than policies on paper. Businesses need to show that inspections happen regularly, risks are identified, and controls are actively maintained.
EZICHEQ helps demonstrate that safe systems exist — and that they are actually being used.
Sections 37 and 38 of the HSWA emphasize the importance of managing and controlling plant and workplaces to ensure they are free from health and safety risks. This involves not only maintaining equipment and structures but also ensuring that all assets are accounted for and regularly inspected. By implementing a robust system like EZICHEQ, businesses can achieve comprehensive oversight of their assets, ensuring that each piece of equipment is safe and compliant with regulations. This proactive approach helps prevent potential hazards and ensures that all safety measures are up to date.
HSWA requires businesses to ensure that workplaces, plant, and structures under their control are without risks to health and safety.
Without this visibility, unsafe or unchecked equipment can easily slip through the cracks.
Section 44 places personal responsibility on officers, including directors and senior leaders. Officers must take reasonable steps to understand health and safety risks, ensure appropriate systems are in place, and verify that those systems are working.
This does not mean officers must complete inspections themselves — but it does mean they must be able to demonstrate oversight.
EZICHEQ gives officers confidence that systems are functioning without relying on assumptions or manual reporting.
HSWA recognises that effective health and safety depends on worker involvement. Businesses must engage workers on health and safety matters and provide opportunities for participation.
If systems are difficult to use, engagement drops — and so does compliance.
By reducing friction, EZICHEQ helps make safety part of the daily routine rather than an administrative burden.
HSWA requires businesses to identify hazards, eliminate or minimise risks, and monitor those risks on an ongoing basis.
Annual audits alone are not enough. Risks change daily, and systems need to reflect that.
This approach supports proactive risk management rather than reactive responses after incidents occur.
One of the most stressful moments for any business is being asked to produce health and safety records under pressure — whether during an audit, inspection, or investigation.
HSWA requires businesses to demonstrate what actions were taken, when they were taken, and by whom.
This reduces reliance on paper, memory, and last-minute scrambling.
The Health and Safety at Work Act does not expect perfection. It expects businesses to take health and safety seriously, put systems in place, and actively manage risk.
For many organisations, this means less stress, better oversight, and greater confidence that health and safety obligations are being met — without adding unnecessary administrative load.
Book a demo today to get a full personalised tour of the EZICHEQ system so you can see how and why the system is a great solution to manage Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 outcomes.
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