By Greg Allan, tradesman and creator of Data First Coaching
What counts as a PCBU on an earthmoving site?
An earthmoving contractor, whether it is one excavator and a tipper or a yard with several machines and operators, is a PCBU (a person conducting a business or undertaking) under New Zealand's Health and Safety at Work Act 2015. WorkSafe's Introduction to HSWA describes the Act as covering nearly all work and workplaces, with WorkSafe as the regulator that enforces it. That duty follows the business onto every site cut, trenching job and bulk earthworks package it quotes, and officers of a company must exercise due diligence to make sure the business is meeting its obligations.
The duty does not depend on how big the operation is. A sole operator running one machine on dry hire carries the same PCBU status as a business with a shed full of plant, a few tippers and a crew of operators.
What is the primary duty of care on a wet hire or dry hire job?
The primary duty of care covers the plant, the systems of work and the people, whether the earthmoving contractor is supplying an operator on wet hire or sending a machine out dry hire to a civil contractor or builder who runs their own crew. WorkSafe's Excavation safety guidance and the Good practice guidelines set out what the primary duty includes: a work environment without risks, safe plant and structures, safe systems of work, safe handling and storage of plant and substances, welfare facilities for workers, and enough training, information and supervision to protect everyone on site.
For an earthmoving contractor this reaches into things like servicing schedules, fuel handling, floating a machine between sites and the condition of attachments. Where a machine goes out dry hire, the question of who controls the work and who manages which risk still has to be worked through, not assumed away by the hire arrangement.
What must you do to manage risk on trenching, drainage or rock breaking work?
You are expected to identify the hazards a job could reasonably create, eliminate the risk where that is reasonably practicable, and where it cannot be eliminated, minimise it. That is the risk management approach set out in WorkSafe's Good practice guidelines, and it applies directly to the trenching, drainage and rock breaking work an earthmoving contractor quotes week to week: ground that can move, services that can be struck, and soil that may need checking before it is disturbed.
Where a site cut or trench disturbs soil, the same guideline points you to your regional council to check compliance with the Resource Management regulations on contaminated soil before you start. That check sits alongside, not instead of, the HSWA duty to manage the physical risk of the excavation itself.
This is general information, not legal, tax or employment advice. Check your own situation with the body named here or a qualified adviser.
When do you need to notify WorkSafe, and what records do you keep?
Some excavation work counts as particularly hazardous and WorkSafe requires advance notice before it starts, under its Particular hazardous work page. That page sets out the criteria, including excavation that exceeds certain depth and slope measures, and the current notice period to work to, so check it directly rather than relying on memory of what applied last time.
If a notifiable event happens, such as a trench collapse or a serious injury on site, WorkSafe's notifiable events quick guide says the PCBU in control of the workplace must take reasonable steps to preserve the site until an inspector allows normal work to resume, and must keep records of the event for a set period set out on that page. For an earthmoving contractor juggling several sites and machines, that record keeping is exactly the kind of office work that gets missed when it is chased from memory at the end of a busy month.
What about builders, civil contractors or other subbies sharing your site?
When an earthmoving contractor is working inside someone else's civil project, floating machines in and out alongside builders, other subbies and sometimes other plant operators, WorkSafe's guidance on PCBUs working together is clear that duties overlap rather than pass to one party. Each PCBU is expected to consult, cooperate and coordinate on how risks are managed and who is best placed to manage each one.
WorkSafe's guidance on managing the contracting chain puts it plainly: a PCBU cannot contract out of its health and safety duties or hand them to someone else by agreement. A dry hire contract or a subbie arrangement does not remove the earthmoving contractor's own duty, it sits alongside the builder's or civil contractor's duty on the same site.
Keeping all of this straight, which site had which notice given, which toolbox talk happened before which trench was opened, which machine was serviced before it went out, is data first work. It comes from the owner's own job records, not from memory months later. AI agents, which are software that carries out a task the way the owner would, using their own wording and their own rules, can hold that paperwork against the actual job it belongs to, so the record exists at the time rather than being reconstructed after WorkSafe asks for it. Used this way, AI agents give the office side of safety the same discipline the site already has.
Where can you check the current rules?
- Excavation safety: the primary duty of care and worker duties on excavation sites.
- Introduction to HSWA: what the Act covers and who the regulator is.
- Good practice guidelines (excavation PDF): the detail of the primary duty and risk management steps.
- Particular hazardous work: which excavation work needs advance notice to WorkSafe.
- Notifiable events quick guide: preserving a site and keeping records after an event.
- PCBUs working together and managing the contracting chain: shared duties when PCBUs work on the same site.
How does Data First Coaching approach this?
Data First Coaching, built by Greg Allan, starts from the earthmoving contractor's own job and site records rather than a general safety checklist. The Trade Business Intelligence looks at what the owner's own data shows, which sites, which machines, which notices, which records, to find where a gap in the paperwork is really coming from rather than treating the symptom again next time WorkSafe asks.
The how, including the way agents are set up to hold those records against the owner's own jobs, is worked through inside the Academy, with members. The Academy is built for owners who are open minded, innovative and willing to share, because the Trade Business Intelligence is powered by every member, for every member.
