H&S Reps Award - Nominations and Guidelines

Award Overview:

The Health and Safety Representative Awards celebrate outstanding contributions by Health and Safety Representatives (H&S Reps). They are a chance to recognise those people who have proactively supported improvement in health, safety and wellbeing for your organisation. Workers who have sought to make work better for everyone around them, while also getting on with their core work as well.

Nomination Guidelines:

Each nomination needs to provide as much detail as possible about the nominee’s contributions to improving health, safety and wellbeing and may include supporting initiatives, participation and leadership. The criteria are purposefully broad, as we recognise there is a lot of work that H&S Reps undertake, which can have a big impact in the various working environments we have within the public sector. Your nomination needs to be endorsed by a senior manager, union rep or the health and safety committee. We recommend: Nomination(s) from an agency are coordinated by one designated person. That there is early engagement with union organisers. That you take the time to speak to the nominee’s colleagues, manager and business partners. There is no limit on the number of nominations per agency.

Judging Criteria:

The judging criteria is intentionally generalised, so as not to limit the types of activities for which a H&S Rep can be nominated. However, there are some things that will help a nomination stand out to the judges. We recommend nominations include:

• ·      Tangible outcomes from the nominee’s efforts in health, safety or wellbeing.
• ·         Setting out how the nominee has acted as the ‘voice’ of workers in health, safety or wellbeing matters.
• ·         Examples of workplace changes or policy improvements resulting from the nominee’s initiatives.
• ·         Examples of impactful campaigns or events contributing to positive outcomes.
• ·         Where leadership has been demonstrated.
• ·         Identifying where creative ideas have inspired others in health, safety, or wellbeing.
• ·         for the Team Award - criteria of two or more people, mostly or entirely made up of elected H&S Reps. Instances showcasing the nominee going ‘above and beyond’ expectations of a H&S Rep.

If you have any questions about the nomination process, please contact ghsl@mpi.govt.nz