Your duty as a PCBU
Under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, a glazing business is a PCBU — a person conducting a business or undertaking. Its primary duty is to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of its workers and of anyone else affected by its work: a safe work environment, safe plant and structures, and safe systems of work. Carrying and installing large panes, cutting, and working off ladders and scaffold are the obvious risks in glazing.
Site-specific safety plans
A site-specific safety plan (SSSP) sets out the hazards on a particular job and how they will be controlled. It isn't a document the Act itself names, but it is a common way to show you are meeting your duties, and main contractors routinely ask subcontractors for one before they come on site. A good one is about this site — access, heights, pane sizes and weights, who else is working nearby — not a copy of the last job's.
Working at height and notifying WorkSafe
WorkSafe's guidance Working at height in New Zealand expects businesses to manage the risk of falls on every job. Some work must also be notified to WorkSafe at least 24 hours before it starts — including construction work where someone could fall 5 metres or more, and putting up or taking down scaffolding with that fall risk.
There are exclusions: work on a house up to and including two full storeys, work done from a ladder only, and minor or routine maintenance and repair. Check WorkSafe's notifications page for the full wording before relying on an exclusion.
Where Coglass fits
Coglass keeps the safety paperwork with each job. It is a record you fill in, not an official SSSP template — check it against what your main contractor and WorkSafe expect:
- A risk assessment and method statement on every job. Hazards, who is at risk and the controls, the method step by step, PPE, equipment and emergency notes — filled in on the desktop or the phone, and exported as a PDF. The equipment list is pre-filled from the access level recorded on the survey.
- Surveys on the phone. Each opening is measured, drawn and photographed, with notes, GPS and the access level — and it works with no signal, syncing when you are back in coverage.
- Scaffold and access hire priced properly. Set up scaffold, a tower or a MEWP as a hire item with a day rate; it is charged once per job, not per pane, and you can raise a hire order to the hire company.
Want to see it on your own jobs? Book a demo or see pricing in NZD.
Sources
- WorkSafe — Introduction to the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015
- WorkSafe — Working at height in New Zealand
- WorkSafe — Notifying hazardous work
- Site Safe — Site-specific safety plans
This page explains the rules in general terms. Standards and tax rules change, and how they apply depends on the job — check the source, your building control body or your accountant before relying on it.