By Greg Allan, tradesman and creator of Data First Coaching
What health and safety duties does WorkSafe require of a glazing business owner in New Zealand?
Most glazing businesses are a PCBU under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, and WorkSafe New Zealand is the regulator that enforces it. A PCBU duty means managing the risks that come with the actual work: cutting and handling toughened glass, working at height to fit a window or a balustrade, standing a crew on a ladder for a measure visit, so far as is reasonably practicable. According to WorkSafe's guidance on managing risk, the duty is to first try to eliminate the risk, and where that is not possible, to minimise it. For many glazing businesses this duty gets treated as paperwork filled in after a breakage or a near-miss, rather than as part of the job itself.
Who counts as a PCBU, and does a sole trader glazier still have duties?
A PCBU is a person conducting a business or undertaking, which under WorkSafe's introduction to HSWA may be an individual glazier working alone or a glazing business running a crew. There are four types of duty holder under the Act, PCBUs, officers, workers and other persons at the workplace, and a glazier can be more than one of these at once. Where the business is a company, an officer, often the owner, carries a separate duty under section forty-four of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 to exercise due diligence so the business actually meets its duties, not just claims to. For a glazier running the business alone, this duty does not disappear because there is no crew; it still covers clients, site visitors, and any subbie or glass supplier's driver who steps onto the job.
What does a genuine job scan for hazards look like on a measure visit or install?
A real hazard scan is not a form filled in afterwards, it is the same careful look a glazier already gives a job before quoting it. Under the General Risk and Workplace Management rules, a PCBU must first identify the hazards that could reasonably cause harm in that work, and for a glazier that is the frame condition, the access, and what the glass and fittings will demand once install starts. A measure visit for a balustrade on an upper deck, a shopfront install above a footpath, or a shower screen fit in a cramped bathroom each carry different risks, and WorkSafe's guidance on working at height sets out what a PCBU must have in place for safe access, safe plant and a safe system of work before anyone goes up a ladder. This is where AI agents, software that carries out a task the way you would, with your own wording and your own checklist, can help: an agent built around your own job records can flag a site that has come up as a height or access risk before, so the hazard is caught on the measure visit, not discovered mid-install.
What happens when duties overlap with other PCBUs on a commercial shopfront or building site?
On a commercial shopfront job, or any site shared with a builder, a shopfitter or other subbies, a glazier's duties overlap with theirs, and none of them can contract the risk away. WorkSafe's advice on PCBUs working together says each PCBU must comply to the extent it has, or could reasonably be expected to have, the ability to influence and control the matter the risk relates to, which for a glazier usually means the glass handling, the install method, and the area around the work while it is in progress. The same guidance on PCBUs sharing a site is clear that a PCBU cannot pass its duties on or increase the risk to someone else in the chain, and that PCBUs must notify WorkSafe of a death, a notifiable injury or illness, or a notifiable incident connected to the work. For a glazing business this means the duty does not stop at the glazier's own crew; it covers how a breakage, a dropped panel or a fall is handled on a site the business does not fully control.
How does protecting the crew's health and capacity fit into health and safety duties?
Protecting a crew's health is as much a duty as fitting the right PPE, because a tired installer handling toughened glass or standing a balustrade late in the day is where real incidents happen. WorkSafe's guidance on manual handling says the PCBU's primary duties include providing safe systems of work and the training, instruction or supervision people need, which for a glazier covers how glass panels are carried, racked and lifted into a frame all day, not just on the biggest job of the week. WorkSafe also puts a duty on the PCBU to monitor worker health and to ask for and act on workers' own views on hazards, so a crew member raising a concern about pace or a job running long is part of meeting the duty, not a complaint to manage around. Knowing this starts with data first thinking: a glazier's own job notes, incident and near-miss records, and roster hours show where fatigue and pressure actually build, rather than guessing after someone gets hurt. AI agents that watch job hours and flag a crew running long, or back to back emergency boarding calls, are doing the same job a careful owner would do by hand, just without missing the week everyone was too busy to notice.
Where can you check the current rules?
- Introduction to the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, explains PCBU, officer and worker duties, and what WorkSafe New Zealand does.
- Safe use of machinery, how a PCBU must manage risk, eliminating it first and minimising what is left.
- Working at height in New Zealand, duties for ladder, scaffold and access work on a measure visit or install.
- PCBUs working together: advice when contracting, overlapping duties and first aid obligations on a shared site.
- PCBUs working together, sharing a site or contracting chain, and notifying WorkSafe of a serious event.
- General risk and workplace management, the duty to identify hazards before work starts.
- Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, the Act itself, including PCBU, officer and workplace duties.
- Preventing manual handling injuries, duties around lifting, carrying and handling glass and other loads.
This is general information, not legal, tax or employment advice. Check your own situation with the body named here or a qualified adviser.
How does Data First Coaching approach this?
Greg Allan's Data First Coaching starts from a glazing business's own data, the job notes, near-miss records, roster hours and site photos already sitting in the business, read through the Trade Business Intelligence, rather than starting from a generic safety checklist. For a glazier, that often shows whether a hazard is really about one tricky access point, a glass supplier's lead time pushing an install into a rush, or a crew running too many jobs back to back. Greg teaches it through the glass ball lesson: “if you drop the glass ball, it scratches it and that scratch will never come out,” and applies that same care to people, not just jobs. The how, building the scan and the records that catch this early, is worked through inside the Academy, with members, because the Trade Business Intelligence is powered by every member who is open minded, innovative and willing to share what they find.
