In 2019, HASANZ’s Building the Professions report identified a clear challenge: New Zealand needed more health and safety professionals, and the system needed to build workforce capacity. To understand how this picture had changed, HASANZ commissioned Scarlatti and Laird Consulting to revisit the earlier findings and examine whether workforce capacity and capability remain significant constraints. We found that the workforce has grown strongly since 2019, shifting the focus from overall numbers to having the right skills in the right places.
The project combined a literature review, stakeholder interviews, a survey of more than 470 practitioners, employers and other system stakeholders, workforce data analysis, and an impact model. Rather than assuming that adding more people or qualifications would produce better health and safety outcomes, we tested where investment would be most likely to make a meaningful difference.
Generalist supply growth
The generalist workforce has grown even faster than forecast. Census data suggests the number of people in generalist H&S roles increased by about 6% a year from 2018 to 2023, compared with the 4% annual growth anticipated in 2019. The majority of surveyed employers expected this growth to continue.
Although recruitment is not always easy (about half of employers surveyed said qualified professionals were difficult to recruit), the market can usually meet demand for generalist roles. Entry routes are flexible, too: up to 80% of survey respondents said they had “fallen into” the profession from operations, human resources, management or another field.
Taken together, we suggest that broad interventions to add more generalists to the workforce are not the priority.
Look at specialist supply
The specialist picture is more mixed. Interviews signalled possible constraints in disciplines such as occupational medicine, occupational hygiene, hazardous substances, occupational health nursing, human factors and ergonomics, asbestos, and organisational psychology, among other areas.
Some disciplines have limited education and training pathways, while others have low career visibility or depend heavily on overseas recruitment. In several areas, these challenges are compounded by “unrealised demand” for specialist expertise – that is, employers do not always recognise when specialist input is needed or understand the value it can add, so workplace need does not result in businesses willing to pay.
In contrast, the survey evidence did not show a general shortage across specialist disciplines. Specialists reported fewer hours of work than generalists, and fewer than 10% of either group worked more than 50 hours a week. Small samples also make discipline level results uncertain. Short, discipline-specific deep dives are needed.
The clearer system-wide capacity risk is senior professional depth: people able to design systems, advise decision-makers and shape long-term controls.
Demand is the stronger lever
A useful distinction emerged between two kinds of shortage. The first is a shortage of demand: a workplace may need more capability than it currently recognises or pays for. The second is shortage of supply: an employer wants capability that the market cannot provide. Both matter, but our evidence suggests addressing the first is the larger opportunity.
When survey respondents named the single biggest constraint to reducing injury and long-term harm, demand-side factors such as leadership, enforcement, incentives and competing business pressures ranked highest. Around 82-84% of both specialists and generalists selected a demand-side factor. Capability and capacity were real concerns, but not the strongest lever overall.
Employers cannot demand quality if they do not know what good looks like. Some still ask for “a safety person” without knowing whether they need an advisor to support daily practice, a professional to design and assure systems, or a specialist with deep technical or clinical expertise. Practical buyer tools including role and skills frameworks, job description templates, procurement prompts, “who to engage when” guidance, and a role filter on the HASANZ Register would help increase demand for qualified professionals, making it harder for the small amount of low-capability advice to undermine confidence in the profession.
Influence: a multiplier effect
Technical knowledge matters, but practitioners rarely control outcomes by themselves. Their advice has to work through senior leaders, line managers, workers and external partners. That is why leadership, communication and influencing skills, alongside the ability to integrate health and safety with organisational strategy, topped the capability priorities identified in the survey.
For practitioners, the implication is practical: build the ability to frame risk in terms decision-makers understand, negotiate for effective controls, coach others, and hold a line without losing the relationship. These skills develop through experience, mentoring, coaching and exposure to strategic decisions, not technical courses alone. Investment should therefore be targeted towards roles with the greatest influence over decisions and long-term risk.
Three surprise findings
First, generalist growth exceeded the 2019 forecast. The profession has made substantial progress, which allows attention to move from total headcount to workforce mix and maturity.
Second, the case for across-the-board accreditation was weaker than expected. We know that training and accreditation grow capability, better capability impacts workplace practice, and practices determine health and safety outcomes. But the effect of growing technical skills is diluted at each step. Our impact model suggested that accreditation might reduce overall harm by less than 1%. That estimate is directional, but it reinforces the case for targeted investment and stronger employer demand.
Third, cultural capability showed an unusually clear personal demand signal. While 49% of respondents had completed cultural capability or responsive practice training, 68% were interested in it. That makes cultural capability a credible development stream alongside leadership, influence and role-based technical capability.
A more targeted next step
The workforce story is no longer simply “we need more people”. Generalist growth is a relative success. The next step is to build senior depth, investigate specific specialist pipelines, help employers recognise and procure the right capability, and help practitioners increase their influence.
Supply still matters, but informed demand is what will pull quality capability into the system.
Kayla Forrest is a research manager with Scarlatti. The report is available here.
