ACC is enabling businesses to 'disrupt' health and safety

2nd October 2020

More than any other organisation, ACC knows the complexity and importance of health and safety. In its simplest form, ACC is designed to support and financially cover New Zealanders when they are injured – no matter who they are or who’s at fault. It also does a lot of prevention work, helping keep people safe at work and in their day-to-day lives.

But as ACC’s Head of Business Customer Service Delivery, Phil Riley, explained at last year’s Safeguard National Health and Safety Conference, even though the organisation lives and breathes health and safety – there’s always room to improve.

ACC has spent the last few years delving into process improvement, working with businesses to co-design improvements the government entity could make to better serve New Zealand’s people and businesses. A huge part of this process has been working to deliver value to organisations, and incentivising good health and safety practices, enabling organisations to disrupt with grants and subsidies, Phil says.

“I don’t feel like it’s our role to disrupt you, it’s simply our role to enable you to disrupt. So, the more we get out of your way and allow you to do that, the better,” Phil said.

ACC’s Head of Business Customer Service Delivery, Phil Riley, explains the company's co-working strategy

Here we summarise what ACC is now doing differently to increase the value of health and safety to your organisation.

Incentivising high-performance

The changes made for Experienced Rated businesses will make the health and safety of their people more of a priority while letting the business and employees decide on the detail:

“We’ve made two changes: removing the industry modifier so your performance has more of an impact on the levy you pay, and reducing the factor of older claims so they’ll have less of an impact on the levy you pay and recognising your current initiatives”

A co-constructed set of principles to improve ACC’s Accredited Employer Programme. “We will move the programme away from being a tick-the-box compliance exercise with very little impact, to a high-performance, outcome-based approach, with better incentives and quality assurance of claims management through certification.”

This will allow employers to take more control of their risks and claims while maintaining the benchmarks of performance. “We’ll stand back if things are going ok, and we’ll step in if you need us – we’re there as required.”

Creating digital systems that work for you

These days, it’s not good enough to simply have digital platforms – systems need to mimic the way your people work so they become a natural part of your health and safety processes. With the right security and privacy sorted and a more fit-for-purpose solution, ACC’s customers will be able to access the information they need – a key factor in enabling good health and safety practices.

“We want your activity with us, when you desire it, to be much more digital than it is now. Another factor is you’ll consume our information much more and, at times, not even recognise your interaction with ACC.”

“ You could be looking at health and safety information, managing return to work for an employee, or paying levies. We’re interested in giving you information and connecting with you across all sorts of areas.”

Enabling organisations to disrupt

The theme for Safeguard’s National Health and Safety Conference in 2019 was Dare to Disrupt, but as Phil points out, disruption doesn’t always have to mean ‘to disrupt’ – it can also mean ‘to enable organisations to do things differently’.

“In August 2018, our board approved $22 million over five years for injury prevention grants and subsidies, whereby industry can apply to ACC for funding to work up various initiatives in innovation (the design and use of tech), applied research and systems capability development.”

The funding is at a level of $50,000 to $500,000 a year, for a maximum of 3 years, which is significant enough to make a difference!

A quick summary of how ACC can enable you

Incentivising good health and safety practices, working with businesses to co-design improvements in products and value.
Digital opportunities are endless – and working out solutions that are fit-for-purpose to give your people the information they require.
Disruption doesn’t always mean to disrupt – but enabling organisations to disrupt , and supporting them where it’s valuable, can have the same impact.