May 2024 Newsletter

A word from the editor

Tēnā koutou katoa

Welcome to our Newsletter following our last committee meeting.  Lots of events happening so hope you enjoy the catch up.

I put these photos in from a hike up to the Mueller Hut at Mt Cook a week ago, it was a stunning day, but a bit of a gruelling hike of 1000m over 4km. Well worth it for the perfect view of Aoraki and the non-alcoholic beer after! Fiona has recently hiked the Tongariro Alpine crossing (need photos Fi) and if anyone else has adventures to share please let me know. Good to share our other passions other than HFE.

Please send any information or news that you would like included in the next edition to gwandkg@gmail.com, news@hfesnz.org.nz or admin@hfesnz.org.nz

Ngā mihi nui

Karen Goodfellow, HFESNZ Newsletter Editor

A word from the Chairperson

Kia ora koutou, talofa lava

I hope you are all well despite the temperature starting to fall as we head towards winter. A quick recap of society activities over the last few weeks and coming up.

• HFESNZ Special General Meeting
• AUT HFE PG Expo
• Workforce Development Plan update
• HASANZ update
• HFESNZ online
• AGM
• HFESNZ 1-day conference
• Musculoskeletal interest group
• IWH recognition
• Supporting H&S education

Special General Meeting - On the 30^{th of} April 2024 the HFESNZ held a Special General Meeting to vote on the proposed membership.  We had 25 people attending, ngā mihi for those of you who gave up your lunch time to participate. Thank you also to the PAB team for managing the process.  Read more in the PAB section.

HFE AUT PG expo and launch– The team of Fiona and Liz have been extremely busy preparing the Expo on May 21^st. There are close to 20 installs showcasing all the work that our amazing members do across NZ. If you are in Auckland, please come out and support both the expo and PG course opening.   See more in the Events section.

Workforce Development Plan update – Our EPO (Educational Pathway) teams have been working diligently these past few months on their work programs. Great to see our members collaborating and discussing innovative ways to promote HFE across education, industry, and the workforce. They are also doing a great job strengthening our internal processes (PAB) as well. Fantastic work and keep it up!

HFESNZ online – Our very own Tahlia Fisher  recently presented her PhD research at the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society of Australia (HFESA) professional development webinar series. Well done Tahlia your presentation was well received by the viewers online. This is a new venture between our two societies designed to strengthen our Ergonomics trans-Tasman links. If you would like to present and showcase what amazing kiwi ergonomists do in Aotearoa, please get in touch with us.

Well done to the HFE team at WorkSafe who recently presented a webinar on musculoskeletal health risk management this week (presented by Leanne Hunter). Great to see your hard mahi come into fruition. Please check out their new resources on work-related musculoskeletal disorders on the WorkSafe website (link below). In addition, keep an eye out for their risk assessment course/workshops commencing in May 2024 – see events section.

AGM 2024 – Please note our AGM this year is on June 13^th online. The AGM is an important opportunity to celebrate key achievements, and raise any concerns or feedback. We are also looking for people who are interested in joining the HFESNZ committee. If so, please reach out to the society secretary.

HFESNZ 1-day conference – At the recent committee meeting we confirmed that the HFESNZ 1-day conference will again be held during the week of the HASANZ conference in Wellington. The date has been set for September 17^th. I am looking for 3 members (preferably Wellington-based) who are able to help run the conference. This is a great opportunity for those who are looking to be more involved with the society. You keen? If so, please let me know. Thank you to Bikram Pandey who is working behind the scenes in support of this event.

Musculoskeletal Interest Group or ‘MIG’ update – Currently the MIG team consists of Parul and I. We are planning to run a series of events, webinars, and information sharing activities in 2024 to promote MSD research and practice. One of our key goals this year is to promote MSD or risk-assessment tools that will not only help ergonomists, but also the health & safety community. If you know of any MSD-related events coming up (such as the WorkSafe workshops) we would love to know more. Furthermore, we are seeking expressions of interest for those wanting to showcase technology that can help reduce MSDs in NZ. Watch this space.

IWH recognition – A special and shameless plugin/shoutout to my colleague and society member Chris Polaczuk from CHASNZ Work Should Not Hurt (WSNH). Earlier this year the Institute of Work & Health (IWH) recently featured WSNH as an impact case study demonstrating how participatory ergonomics programmes can work in construction (link below). Well done to Chris and the CHASNZ team.

Supporting H&S education – I acknowledge the contributions that many of our members have made in supporting HFE university courses recently. A number of you have been guest lecturers sharing your experiences with students from Victoria University and AUT HFE courses. Thank you Joanne Crawford, Fiona Trevelyan, Liz Ashby, and Nic Green for giving members this platform.

Recently, Joanne Crawford facilitated a meeting between HFESNZ, HASANZ, and H&S education providers/representatives. While the purpose of the meeting was to discuss questions to pose to the Minister of Workplace relations, it is clear that there is still a lot of work to be done (especially in this current environment) to keep safety at the forefront of workplaces and education. Thank you to our members for supporting this.

Final thoughts - One of the most common questions I am hearing from our community is “what benefits does joining HFESNZ give me?” or, “why doesn’t everyone know about HFESNZ?”.  All very important questions which I am confident we as a society are trying to address through our work in efforts in PAB, WDP, HASANZ, and education. Thank you to our members who have been actively contributing to society events and activities, most of which is in your own time.

If you want to help more with HFESNZ, or have an idea to expand our reach, I would love to speak to you. I am especially interested in meeting members with a social media, IT, or online training background. 

Thanks for tuning in, keep up the momentum team as we navigate a very different 2024. See you at the AUT Expo in a few weeks!

Namaste

Stephven

Links:

• WorkSafe 
• IWH
• HFESNZ events 

Membership Update

Welcome to our new members:

• Keith Larsen - Health NZ
• Julie Moffatt - Health NZ Hawkes Bay

Please also note that membership renewal invoices have been sent out. If you could please get these paid in a timely manner or if you have any questions, please email me: admin@hfesnz.org.nz.

Update from Professional Affairs Board

Update on SGM

On the 30th of April 2024 the HFESNZ held a Special General Meeting to vote on the proposed membership Rule changes.

6 motions were voted on (briefly outlined below). Two motions were about introducing new membership categories: 1) Early HFE Career members – which aims to act as a stepping stone for those early in their HFE career to move towards professional membership, and 2) Fellow professional members – which aims to acknowledge the deep understanding and HFE contributions. Three of the motions involved minor wording changes to the professional categories – Certified, Associate, and Technical with a move to using the HFESNZ competency framework to support applications and demonstrate the breadth of knowledge and experience. The last motion was on altering the need for all professional members to submit suitable CPD records annually. Previously only Certified professional members have been required to do these every 3 years as part of re-certification.

The PAB are meeting on 8 May to discuss how we progress with these changes. 

Brief outline of the changes

• Motion 1 – new membership category - Early career (100% approval – 25 votes)
• Motion 2 – wording change to Certified professionals (100% approval – 25 votes)
• Motion 3 – wording change to Associate professionals (100% approval – 25 votes)
• Motion 4 – wording change to Technical professionals (100% approval – 25 votes)
• Motion 5 – new membership category – Fellow (100 % approval - 24 votes, 1 abstained)
• Motion 6 – change to annual CPD for all professional members (100% approval – 25 votes)

Leanne Hunter

Convenor PAB

HASANZ Update

HASANZ are in the process of reviewing their processes and it seems clear that the WFD and HASANZ are no longer WorkSafe priorities. Ongoing work is no longer a certainty and both Bronwyn Presland (Executive Chair) and Mike O’Brien (Independent Chair) are working very hard to make sure HASANZ has a future.

The finances are there for HASANZ to keep going and their conference is still going ahead later this year. With the register under review as well, Bronwyn is supporting an increased HFESNZ membership to register. An invite will be emailed soon.  We have between 16-25 members that are potentially eligible. Bronwyn and Mike were meeting with Minister Brooke on 2 May to secure funding.

HASANZ Conference: 18^th-20^th September. We will be having a stall and need to find some creative ways to enlist new members. Some ideas are to present he PAB membership process as a poster format.  This could show the pathways involved and how they fit with delegates existing skill set and professional education, half price general membership if they sign up over the 3 days, key bullet points on why people would want to have a membership. September is a good time for EP01 (post-graduate) and EP04 (marketing) to put something together for this. The committee is to have a think about merch and themes for the conference and how best to maximize our stall.

Special Interest Group / Webinar

Webinar; An update on musculoskeletal health risk management

From the HFE team, WorkSafe New Zealand was held on Thursday 2^nd May 7.30 - 8.30 pm

Leanne Hunter provided an update on the progress that WorkSafe have made on their musculoskeletal harm reduction programme and recent reports produced. She introduced the Heads of Workplace Safety Authorities (HWSA) – Australia and New Zealand position on ‘How to lift training’ which is soon to be published on the WorkSafe website. The manual handling risk screening tools and the risk assessment tool MAC (Manual Handling Assessment Charts) were also introduced following the recommendation that they be used in New Zealand following the review report: Report: Review of hazardous manual task risk assessments | WorkSafe. If HFESNZ members want to learn more about these tools and how to use them in a practical workshop register at: Event Manager (nzohna.org.nz). Please note that the north Auckland workshop is almost sold out.

At this stage we aren’t running any more webinars it was more of a promotional piece before the risk assessment workshops, we are running in May/June 

See also the events section on MSD workshops to follow on from the webinar.

Events

Discovery Expo and Launch Celebration

Click on the image for the latest information on what to expect for this very special event in the HFE calendar. 

Tuesday 21st May from 2pm – 6pm,

Open Forum, Sir Paul Reeves Building,

City Campus AUT 

The HFE Expo is going to run from 2-4pm and offers a range of exhibits, interactive displays, and insightful talks including AI, motion sensors, robotics, scaffolding and workstation mock ups with over 30 HFE professionals and academics contributing.

The Launch (4-6pm) which follows the Expo is going to celebrate the accredited collaborative HFE postgraduate programme, and includes light refreshments, short presentations, and networking opportunities.

The HFE Expo / Launch is an informal, dynamic event meaning you can come and go when suits you best - and it would be great to see you there!

You can register for this FREE Expo and Launch event on Eventbrite, search eventbrite.co.nz for HFE Discover or come without a ticket

Musculoskeletal Health Workshops

Musculoskeletal Risk Assessment - Workshop 1

From the HFE team, WorkSafe New Zealand - in collaboration with and hosted by the New Zealand Occupational Health Nurses Association (NZOHNA)

A wide range of hazardous manual tasks occur in many New Zealand workplaces and contribute to high injury rates across industry sectors. WorkSafe has been building resources to support businesses to better manage hazardous manual task risks. 

Work health and safety professionals knowledgeable about musculoskeletal health should be at the forefront of reducing the risks associated with hazardous manual tasks. Members of these specialist disciplines are invited to attend Event Manager (nzohna.org.nz) . The workshops are being held in May and June 2024 in centres throughout New Zealand, with limited registrations available. Registration is only $65, with morning tea and lunch provided.

The workshop will introduce screening and risk assessment tools. These are part of a full suite of resources in development for New Zealand use. They come from the Health and Safety Executive, United Kingdom.  Future workshops are planned for members of the health and safety generalist associations and for industry. Other workshops are planned as the New Zealand resources are developed.

Act fast to secure your place! Register HERE (and sign in to access the booking system) 

In liaison with member associations:

• Human Factors and Ergonomics Society of New Zealand
• Occupational Health Physiotherapy Group of Physiotherapy New Zealand
• Vocational occupational therapists - Occupational Therapy New Zealand Whakaora Ngangahau Aotearoa
• Moving and Handling Association of New Zealand
• New Zealand Occupational Hygiene Society
• Occupational health physicians - AFOEM/ANZSOM 

And with thanks to Auckland University of Technology and Victoria University for supporting venue provision, and to HASANZ and member organisations for supporting the promotion of these workshops - Musculoskeletal Workshop flyer.

AGM-Save the date 13^th June

The Committee decided on the 13th of June for our Annual General Meeting. A link will be sent out to invite members to attend virtually closer to the time.  We are considering the same short guest speaker format prior to the AGM, there will be more news to come on this.

We welcome any members interested in becoming more involved within the HFESNZ and or to take on a role on the committee.

Please reach out to our committee members or enquire to Carole at admin@hfesnz.co.nz.

One Day mini-Conference-Wellington- Save the date of 17^th September

As in the past we have aligned our mini-conference to coincide with the HASANZ conference which runs from the 18^th to the 20^th of September. The committee are asking for Wellington members to help out with managing this event by setting up a small organising committee and developing a theme for the day.  Bikram Pandey is already working to find a venue and the HFESNZ committee will of course be able to assist but we really do need local people on the ground so please contact us if you can help admin@hfesnz.org.nz .

HASANZ Conference

18^th-20^th September. See above under the HASANZ section - click here to go to their website for further information.

International Ergonomics Association (IEA) News

For more information and to register, click here

General News

The United Nations’ World Day for Safety and Health at Work was marked on 28 April, which is also the International Commemoration Day for Dead and Injured Workers.

The UN day aimed to highlight the benefits of creating a positive health and safety culture and raise awareness of the problems and dangers that still exist. It also shines a spotlight on the new risks that have emerged with advances in technology and changes to working conditions.

To mark this year’s day, the International Labour Organization (ILO), is launching a new report called ‘Ensuring safety and health at work in a changing climate’.  be available on the ILO’s website.

Other articles and news include a ‘Good Moves for Safety’ infographic on Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs).  A reminder that MSD’s are still one of the main causes of ill health in the workplace.  See the infographic

Caffeine Connections and its relevance to HFE and human performance is worth a read with the paper, published in the journal Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science, said: “Caffeine is consumed by individuals participating in many industrial and governmental environments to moderate their behaviour. A drug with such complexity should be better understood because it is consumed by individuals in high-risk environments to moderate their behaviour.”

Read the full article

You will find all the articles and more on the latest edition on ‘THINK’ here