Nearly 400 cases of health and safety incidents logged in 2024
The number of health and safety events involving employees at the Invercargill City Council nearly doubled in 2024 amid increased awareness on the reporting process.
The city council logged 391 health and safety incidents, including abuse and "challenging behaviour" in 2024, up from the 203 a year prior, according to Local Democracy Reporting.
Employees in animal control and parking, in particular, saw an increase in verbal abuse and threatening behaviour.
Despite the increase, the council noted that the total number of injuries recorded saw a decline. There was also only a small number of abusive interactions with members of the public.
The highest risk category was psychosocial harm, which Council group manager community engagement and corporate services Trudie Hurst defined as actions intended to cause psychological injury to a worker and negatively impact their wellbeing.
Hurst attributed the increase in recorded cases to greater awareness on the reporting processes, as well as the implementation of a new user-friendly system, according to the LDR report.
Many of the incidents recorded were detected using Genesys, a phone monitoring system used by customer service.
The system is capable of conducting "sentiment analysis," which can identify keywords that could indicate aggression or abuse, according to the report.
Hurst noted that Genesys is not able to detect every incident reported by staff, but it was still valuable for training and responding to aggressive behaviour.
The council's report comes in the wake of the persisting presence of psychosocial harm in workplaces. Data from WorkSafe NZ found that 60% of all workers in New Zealand experienced work-related stress in the past year. Employees also experienced the following:
Work-related mental health or wellbeing issues (30%)
Work-related anxiety (31%)
Work-related depression (20%)
New mental health or wellbeing issues (11%)
Offensive behaviours towards employees are also a prevalent issue in New Zealand, particularly for customer-facing employees.
"Offensive behaviours can cause harm to the person they are directed at as well as people witnessing the behaviour," WorkSafe NZ said. "Repetitive or severe exposure can cause both physical and psychological harm."
A third of all New Zealand employees report being exposed to at least one offensive behaviour in the past year. The most prevalent incident was bullying, with 23%. Others reported being exposed to:
Cyberbullying (16%)
Threats of violence (14%)
Sexual harassment (11%)
Physical violence (11%)
