Our thoughts are with the loved ones of Tyler Nii who is missing presumed deceased after an accident while on a commercial skydive over Lake Wakatipu. Our thoughts are also with those working for NZONE in Queenstown, the operators of the skydive. An event like this, is something nobody wants to occur. When tragedies like this happen it hurts us all in the industry and we are all affected in some way or another.

When news of the accident broke I was travelling with a group of tourists who, with me included, had sky dived only days before. The discussion was long and of varying positions but ultimately we all agreed. Facts needed to be shared, it was an unlikely event and all were happy to have jumped and satiated that need for adventure.

As we wait for more information to come through we reflect on our own positions. We still don't know exactly what happened to Tyler and his jumpmaster but we do know that it is an improbable event. For 27 years NZONE has been jumping hundreds of thousands of people and this is their first fatality. The United States Parachuting Association reports fatality risk while skydiving at 0.0007%. That is a rate 24 times less likely then from a motor vehicle accident.

So how do we manage times like these as an industry? First we must support each other through what must be an incredibly difficult time for the staff. This includes being respectful of requests from the company and being very careful of any media requests. We wait for the facts and we learn what we can from the outcomes.

It's also naturally a time that a business reflects internally on their own emergency response systems. Though this should be part of standard and routine practice, unfortunately an incident like this brings a sharp dose of reality.

So ask yourself what happens when the worst happens in your business? Do your staff know the expected emergency response? Do you have a plan to manage the crisis from a management position? When was the last time you ran training to revisit these plans? Prioritise these trainings as part of your annual safety calendar and ensure these happen regularly.

In my experience full team scenario training is one of the best forms to plan, prepare and practice responding to a possible emergency scenario. It provides an insight to people's natural reactions and responses and identifies weaknesses or blindspots not previously considered for both frontline and management teams.

While we all hope we will not need to enact these plans in real life, we also know that with adventure comes risk and there is a probability, though often minute, that the worst can happen. If we are planned and prepared we are a stronger and more robust industry and we ensure terrible tragedies like this are not left without some purpose..

Happy New Year and welcome to 2018. We are in the midst of summer and business is booming. With such good weather people have been out and about experiencing all the great adventures New Zealand has to offer. And with all this busy-ness, there is of course a few things to look out for.

First it's the festive season and many people employed in the adventure industry and keen to make the most of celebrations, and not just the young ones! It's an important time to be on top of things like your Drug and Alcohol Policy. As part of the policy monitoring your staff and ensuring they are fit for work in all sense of the phrase is a business' responsibility. Make sure you have good supervisors on board who are able to identify and deal with those who may not be up to par on the day. Help your supervisors by having a plan to how to manage these situations before they occur and provide some fat in the system in case you end up unexpectedly being short staffed. Your best tool to keep on top of this is to create a safety positive culture. An environment where co-workers know clearly what the expectations and consequences are around alcohol use, both in and outside of work, helps for them to accept responsibility for their own behaviour and also monitor each other when socialising together.

There is also the issue of fatigue as days are often long as we aim to maximise customer throughput and the best of our daylight hours. Staff also need to be fit for work, free from fatigue. Make sure again that there is the ability to take all required breaks and provide a space away from operations so staff can get away from the ongoing hustle. Your supervisors come into play here making sure staff do pace themselves and take their breaks regularly throughout the day. Work hard on rosters to space out days off so everyone gets a reasonable amount of time off work. Management being visible and on the floor pitching in during these days is often a helpful addition to the team, can boost morale and shows you're all in it together. You may also want to provide some refreshments to acknowledge the hard work your teams are putting in.

Finally this is, for many, their busiest days off the year. This is ideal from a health and safety perspective to ensure that the systems are working well at maximum capacity. Take some time to review your procedures and identify weak areas relating to the extra pressure put on your resources, staff included. Make sure you record what you find and discuss at your next health and safety meeting. There may be some innovative ways people adapt to the extra capacity that may be useful throughout the year.

Heres to a happy, healthy, safe and prosperous 2018 for all!

Under the Heath and Safety at Work Act 2015 businesses are required to consult, co-operate and co-ordinate their health and safety activities when multiple businesses have overlapping duties. This is to firstly reduce any gaps that may occur and secondly to avoid duplication.

Let's take a common example for the adventure industry. A tour operator has booked a provider, let's say a rafting company, to take their client/s rafting. It would make sense that the rafting company takes on responsibility for all health and safety related to the activity as they have the technical knowledge and expertise for the activity and presumably the location. This leaves the tour operator with what responsibilities? Well they need to ensure they are engaging a legally compliant provider, if there were any relevant medical issues they should ensure this information is passed on to the provider (and the provider should ensure they only take people who meet their own policies). If a notifiable incident occurred they would need to ensure that it was reported to Worksafe.

Gaps can occur when we assume that the provider is taking responsibility for reporting to Worksafe, or that they are a legally compliant without first checking.

Duplication occurs when both organisations take on responsibility for all things. In the above example the tour operator should not need to create their own hazard register for the activity as the raft operator should have already done that with a greater amount of knowledge and insight into the activity themselves.

The best way to ensure overlapping duties are managed is through communicating during engagement of the services from the provider. An email outlining what responsibilities you are taking on and what you expect them to take on before the event, will help co-ordinate these and show exactly what steps have been taken to manage overlapping duties. If you are often contracting businesses to provide services such as in the above example a template can be used with different providers.

What's important is that people's safety is all of our responsibility. By communicating clearly prior to engaging other organisations we can ensure we are managing the safety and being compliant under the Health and Safety legislation.