COVID-19 Response
Last updated: 02:41pm, 10th Sep 2021
As an essential service, Northpower’s priority is to keep the power flowing to our customers and ensure the ongoing reliability of the network and the safety of our staff and community during this COVID-19 response. Find out more about what to expect during this time and how to contact us.
Learn more here.Critical Risk Control Management
Keeping our people safe is of utmost importance here at Northpower, and during 2020 we kicked off our Critical Risk Controls Management (CRCM) programme, introducing critical control management as a key health and safety risk management model.
Prior to this point, we established our National Safety Forum as the mechanism for safety management and engagement across our business. We also identified and defined our critical risks, and established our Live Electricity Working Group (LEWG) - a team responsible for defining and implementing the controls around the live electricity critical risk.
Introducing Critical Risk Control Management
Keeping our people safe is of utmost importance here at Northpower, and during 2020 we kicked off our Critical Risk Controls Management (CRCM) programme, introducing critical control management as a key health and safety risk management model.
Back in 2017 we identified ten critical risks within our business that can result in high potential events, events that could cause catastrophic outcomes for both our people and our business.
Our CRCM programme applies a five step process to assess each of our ten critical risks and identify the related critical controls.
Critical risk controls are the mechanisms that we put in place to prevent or mitigate the impact of these critical risks.
We then apply verification activities to monitor and report on the presence and effectiveness of the critical controls for the critical risk.
The CRCM programme started with the critical risk of live electricity and will expand to address the other critical risks in due course.
Workshop training sessions were rolled out across our business during October and November, with all staff in attendance regardless of their roles.
These sessions introduced CRCM, and our teams completed training on the 12 critical risk controls identified for live electricity.
In the lead up to the training days, we shared several video stories from our people who have been involved in prior serious harm incidents, along with stories from their whānau and fellow teammates about the impact it has had on them.
These heartfelt videos brought home just how real the live electricity risk is, and we are proud and appreciative of the participants for their openness, honesty and courage in sharing their stories.
Learning modules for live electricity critical risk management are aligned to SM-EI (Safety Manual – Electricity Industry) ensuring a consistent approach.
Staff completed assessments on the day online through our learning management system ‘npower me’ using tablets/mobile devices.
Following the theory assessment, all operational staff completed practical assessments to ensure thorough understanding of the application of the controls. These practical assessments were completed using a mix of internal and external industry professionals.