Worksafe issues advice on jab mandates

Government agency Worksafe has provided a risk assessment tool for employers to decide if their staff need to be vaccinated.

Businesses have called for clear guidance about excluding unvaccinated customers or staff.

Finance Minister Grant Robertson said at yesterday’s Covid-19 briefing that the tool would help employers with a lot of staff who dealt with the public.

Robertson said government ministers, business groups and unions had worked together to help provide certainty in a new area of employment law.

Under the Covid-19 Public Health Response (Vaccinations) Order 2021, certain work may only be carried out by vaccinated workers.

‘‘Employers can also require other work to be done by a vaccinated employee, if a risk assessment identifies this is necessary for work health and safety purposes,’’ the Worksafe site says.

‘‘That may be the case where the nature of the work itself raises the risk of Covid-19 infection and transmission above the risk faced outside work.

This is likely to have employment implications, and you should follow Employment New Zealand guidance.’’

The employer needed to focus on the work to be done, rather than the employee when doing a risk assessment.

‘‘If you want your employees to be vaccinated for reasons other than work health and safety that is an employment matter.’’

A risk assessment had to be done with employees and their representatives, and employers may seek the advice of a health and safety professional.

Factors to consider included the number of people the employee came into contact with; how easy it was to identify those people; physical distancing; and the risk of Covid-19 transmission and infection at work compared with outside work.

‘‘If your risk ratings tend toward higher risk and you are not able to reduce that risk by implementing more controls, you and your employees should consider whether the work should be performed by a vaccinated employee,’’ Worksafe said.

‘‘If your risk assessment is clear that the risk of Covid-19 infection and transmission through a particular work task is no higher than outside work, you may decide not to require the role to be performed by a vaccinated employee – but you can still act.’’

The Employers and Manufacturers Association has called for workers to carry mandatory digital vaccine passports to enter the workplace.

A recent survey of 115 New Zealand chief executives of large to medium organisations showed that close to half were planning to mandate vaccinations for either all their workers, or those at risk.