The Effectiveness of Organizational Intervention to improve OHS. The case of Air New Zealand

Abstract or Introduction

In 2010, an estimated six hundred to nine hundred New Zealanders died of work-related diseases and a further 30,000 people develop serious but non-fatal work-related ill-health (Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), 2013, p. 1). In the vast majority of cases, these events were preventable.

Through the Health and Safety at Work Act (HSWA) 2015, mandatory duties are placed on persons conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU) to ensure that potential work-related health and safety risks are being eliminated or minimised, so as far as is reasonably practicable (WorkSafe, 2016).

Therefore, executives (e.g., CEO) and board directors must exercise due diligence on health and safety by profiling the risk of an organisation's operations, understanding the key controls in place and setting a system providing data on whether these controls are working.

Beyond these mandatory duties, leaders need to demonstrate to their employees and other stakeholders (e.g., suppliers, customers, shareholders) that they mean it by recognising the benefits of supporting the general health and wellbeing of their workers(The Institute of Directors, 2021).