The employers and workers report examines employer health and safety maturity; worker engagement, participation, and representation; and the impact of workplace safety culture.

Key findings

The 2025 Workforce Insights Programme survey shows overall improvements in New Zealand’s work health and safety cultures, compared to 2023.

• More workplaces now have shared responsibility for health and safety with workers.
• Employers and workers report more formal worker engagement processes than in 2023, such as toolbox talks, health and safety representatives, and regular agenda items being reported. 
• 74% of the workers surveyed are satisfied with how employers respond to health and safety issues when raised (compared to 67% in 2023, while 85% of workers reported feeling comfortable discussing health and safety with anyone at work. 
• Both employers and workers are also getting better at health and safety training and education. 
  • Since 2023, 74% of the surveyed workers received useful and relevant H&S information from their employer in the past year. Employer awareness of the HASANZ register has also increased to 21%.  
• While risk management processes are common, there are opportunities to address significant gaps. 
• 77% of employers made changes in the last 12 months to improve health and safety.  
  • Forestry employers are most likely to prioritise health and safety, and implement robust practices 
  • Over 90% of employers with workers exposed to airborne substances particularly silica dust, musculoskeletal risks, risks from working around vehicles/mobile machinery, farm vehicles, and powered machinery do something to control these risks. However, more can be done to address these risks, for example:
    • providing risk management training for workers exposed to airborne substances
    • providing PPE for construction workers to mitigate silica dust harm, or 
    • fitting rollover protection to farm vehicles that need it. 
• WorkSafe communications and guidance play a crucial role in reducing harm. Modelling shows that WorkSafe information and guidance directly and effectively influences employers to take action to reduce the risk of worker harm.

Read the report

About the report

The employers and workers report examines employer maturity, worker engagement, participation and representation and the impact of workplace safety culture. The research confirms what we have known anecdotally, there are challenges with our safety culture and the research highlights what sectors we can best influence in terms of changing their behaviour and approach to health and safety.

Understanding current attitudes and behaviours is integral to developing interventions that lead to behaviour change and a more mature health and safety culture.

The research will allow WorkSafe to track improvements in workplace health and safety culture performance over time as we strive to transform New Zealand’s health and safety performance.

Previous reports