Code of Ethics

November 2022

This Code is to assist you, as a member of the New Zealand Institute of Safety Management (NZISM), to know and understand the standards of integrity, professionalism and behaviour which we, as a professional organisation, consider essential. On becoming a member of the NZISM, members agree to abide by its code of ethics. Our code is in line with the INSHPO Code of Ethics.

1. Responsibility

All members are required to:

• Act and work responsibly and competently at all times to improve health and safety.
• Give priority to the health, safety and welfare of workers, employers and other workplace health and safety stakeholders.
• Ensure work carried out by others under their direction is performed competently with honesty and integrity and is accurately reported.
• Ensure they do not knowingly engage in any illegal or un-professional practices.
• Honour their responsibilities to NZISM, their Branch, their profession, employer, client, colleagues, and themselves.
• Abstain from behaviour that will unjustly cause harm to the reputation of the NZISM and the profession in general.
• Honour the constraints that are set out in legislation including but not limited to the Fair Trading Act 1986 and the Privacy Act 2020 and subsequent changes to legislation.
• Co-operate and support the work of the NZISM and Branch activities.
• Participate in the development of sound working relationships and interactions.
• Take all reasonable steps to preserve the confidentiality of information acquired through membership of the NZISM, including personal log in information.
• Make informed decisions in the performance of professional duties that adhere to all relevant laws, regulations and recognised standards of practice

2. Integrity and honesty

All members must:

• Perform their work and duties with integrity, honesty and equity while adhering to legal principles.
• Provide advice, express an opinion, or make statements in an honest, objective, impartial and efficient way and consider the reasonably foreseeable consequences of that advice.

3. Areas of competence

All Members are required to:

• Perform work within their areas of competence and within the limits of their abilities. Members shall not undertake responsibilities in relation to health and safety which they do not believe themselves competent to discharge.
• Acknowledge any limitations in their own competence and shall not undertake any activities for which they are not appropriately prepared for and/or not suitably qualified.
• Only make public statements claiming professional knowledge in an area of public interest only if competent to do so, and only if such statements are consistent with other parts of the NZISM Code of Ethics.
• Take all reasonable steps to obtain, maintain and develop their professional competence by acknowledging new developments in occupational safety and health and shall encourage others working under their supervision to do so.
• Comply with the NZISM Continuing Professional Development (CPD) scheme when required to do so.
• Do not falsely represent professional qualifications, including education, credentials, designations, affiliations, titles, and work experience.

4. Conflict of interest

All Members are required to actively:

• Identify situations that create real or perceived conflicts of interest and provide full disclosure of those conflicts to all affected parties.
• Disclose promptly and effectively all significant financial and other relevant interests with potential for providing conflict of interest or influencing the impartiality of any reports, advice, or decisions.
• Use a professional approach in all business activities with other members.
• Seek to avoid their professional judgement being influenced by any conflict of interest. They shall inform their employer, client, or the NZISM of any conflict between the member’s personal interest and service to the relevant party.

5. External communication

No member of NZISM is permitted to comment (either verbally or written) on behalf of NZISM unless express written approval from the CEO has been provided prior.

No board member, senior leadership team member, committee member, or any other member of the NZISM shall be answerable or responsible for any act, omission, neglect or default of any other person (notwithstanding any receipt or other document signed or act done for the sake of conformity with the rules of the NZISM) or for any loss or damage whatsoever suffered by the NZISM unless such an act, omission, neglect, default, loss or damage shall happen through or as a result of their own dishonesty or culpable negligence or skillful default.

Nothing contained or implied in the previous paragraphs hereof shall operate to exempt any person from or to indemnify them against, any liability which by virtue of any rule or law would otherwise attach to them in respect of any negligence, default breach of duty, or breach of trust of which they may be guilty in relation to the NZISM.

Provided however that the NZISM shall not under any circumstances be bound to make any payment or to call upon its members to contribute toward any payment which is over and above the amount of funds held by NZISM at the time of any claim for indemnity and/or reimbursement.

6. Disclosure and whistle blowing

Any member of the NZISM may become aware of an organisation breaching any relevant or associated legislation or standards resulting in an unacceptable level of risk of injury or illness. How the member responds to this situation will be determined by the nature of the relationship (if any) the professional member has with the organisation.

Initially, the member should discuss the problem with appropriate parties, including management at the highest level and highlight or outline the problem, potential consequences, and professional member’s ethical (and/or perhaps legal) responsibilities.

If there is no action on the part of the organisation and the only way of reducing the risk is to disclose their knowledge of the risk to a third party, the professional member should do so. Before doing so, the professional member should seek advice from senior colleagues, the NZISM or other relevant parties, and should inform management of the organisation of his/her actions.