SiteWise Gold 100%: our journey from a score of 36
SiteWise Gold 100%: our journey from a score of 36
It was 2017, and we had put a lot of time and energy into trying to work through the requirements of the SiteWise accreditation assessment. The documents and process felt confusing, and at times we felt lost in parts of it. Like being in a maze with no way out.
We met with a health and safety specialist to clarify what was required. That did not help as much as we had hoped. We attended a health and safety briefing on best practices. Did it help? Not really.
What they do not see from the outside is the messy middle. The confusion. The paperwork that made no sense. The results that came back and made us question whether we were ever going to get this right.
This is that story. And we are sharing it because the credential on our website today did not arrive without work. If you are considering working with us, or evaluating us against another supplier, this is the context behind the result.
Why we wanted SiteWise accreditation in the first place
We work on roofs. We work at heights. We use harnesses, we use chemicals, we send technicians onto commercial sites alongside dozens of other trades. Health and safety is not a box to tick in this industry. It is the thing that keeps people safe.
We had a health and safety policy. We were doing the right things out on site: hazard identification, WorkSafe NZ notifications, site-specific emergency planning, PPE inspections. But we knew we could do it better.
We did not have a proper system for tracking staff competency and training. Our equipment inspection registers were not as structured as we wanted them to be. When incidents or near misses happened, we were recording them, but we were not documenting the investigation methodology we used, or the outcome of that investigation. We were doing the work, but we were not recording it in a way that proved we were doing the work.
SiteWise accreditation felt like the right framework to push us. We wanted something external that would hold us accountable, give us a clear standard to meet, and make sure nothing was falling through the gaps.
So in 2017 we started the process.
The year we scored 36
SiteWise is New Zealand's national health and safety prequalification standard. For businesses working on commercial sites in property maintenance and exterior cleaning, it is one of the key credentials clients and contractors look for when assessing whether you are safe to engage.
The process involves submitting documented evidence across a range of health and safety categories. The assessors review that evidence and score you against the standard.
We put a lot of focus and energy into pulling it all together. It felt overwhelming at times. The documentation requirements were not always clear, and there were moments it genuinely felt like being in a maze with no map.
We reached out for help. We met with a health and safety specialist. We attended briefings on best practice. But despite all of that, we still were not confident we had it right.
We submitted our evidence and waited.
The results came back.
We scored 36.
A score of 36 sits in the Red band. Red means gaps in documented health and safety systems. We were doing the things we needed to do, we just were not documenting them in the way SiteWise needed to see them to verify that we were doing what we needed to do.
That result stung. But it was clear. Doing the right things and documenting that you do the right things are two very different skills. We had the first one. We needed the second.
Back for another attempt in 2018
In 2018 we came back more determined.
We reviewed everything we could identify as a gap. We also started benchmarking what we were doing against a large nationwide company we do subcontract work for. Their health and safety systems were well-established, and seeing how they approached documentation and accountability gave us a much clearer picture of the standard we were actually working toward.
We strengthened our systems. Improved our documentation. Tightened our processes. By assessment time, we honestly believed we had cracked it.
This time we scored 60.
A score of 60 sits in the Amber band. Amber means your health and safety systems are improving but there is insufficient evidence, or systems still need strengthening. Most principal contractors require a minimum of Green, which starts at 75%, before they will engage a supplier. We were not there yet.
We had made real progress. But we were not at the standard we needed to be.
So we kept going.
What actually changed in 2019
Instead of guessing at what was still wrong, we went through our assessment results carefully and identified the specific gaps.
One of the most significant changes we made was to how we documented incidents, near misses, and accidents. We had been recording them, but we were not capturing the investigation methodology we used, how we went about working out what happened, why it happened, and what we did to make sure it did not happen again. And we were not recording the outcome of those investigations.
That was a meaningful gap. Once we closed it, along with other improvements across our systems and registers, the picture we could show assessors became far more complete.
In 2019 we submitted our evidence again.
We scored 88.
We were awarded SiteWise Green certification.
The assessor's comment read: "Great effort. It is great to see that you have robust health and safety practices and document them."
That feedback meant a lot. Not because it was flattery, but because it reflected three years of work that had been happening behind the scenes. Not perfection. Progress. And proof that the approach had shifted.
From Green to Gold — the full progression
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We did not stop at 88.
Each year we kept reviewing our results, identifying where marks were lost, and making targeted improvements. The year-by-year progression tells the story better than anything else:
2017: 36 — Red
2018: 60 — Amber
2019: 88 — Green
2020: 89 — Green
2021: 90 — Gold (first Gold certification)
2022: 93 — Gold
2023: 90 — Gold (assessors requested additional documentation not previously required and not notified in advance; provided the following year)
2024: 100 — Gold
2025: 100 — Gold
Blast Away Guys has now been SiteWise accredited for seven consecutive years. Five of those years have been at Gold level. The last two have been with a perfect score of 100%.
That progression from Red to 100% Gold did not happen in a leap. It happened one year at a time, through honest assessment, genuine improvement, and a team committed to getting better every single year.
What the journey from Red to Gold actually taught us
One of the clearest lessons from this experience is that a low score is not a verdict. It is a gap analysis.
A Red or Amber result tells you exactly what is missing. The work is in reading that feedback honestly, building what needs to be built, and coming back with better evidence.
We are genuinely grateful now for those early low scores. They forced us to build something we would not otherwise have built: a real, functioning health and safety system. Staff competency registers. Structured equipment inspection schedules. Incident investigation documentation with methodology and outcomes recorded. Evidence of everything, not just the intention to do it.
The systems we have today are better because of 2017 and 2018, not in spite of them.
The commercial clients we work with
Because we hold SiteWise Gold accreditation, our clients know our health and safety standards have been independently assessed and verified against a national standard.
We work with body corporates, facilities managers, commercial building owners, and schools across Northland and Auckland. The clients who care most about our SiteWise status tend to be those managing larger or higher-risk sites: multi-story buildings, managed care facilities, and commercial properties where a supplier's health and safety record is part of how they manage their own risk.
If that is the kind of work you manage, our SiteWise Gold record is worth knowing about.
Helping others through the SiteWise process
Over the years we have also helped other businesses who were struggling with their own SiteWise accreditation journey.
We have worked with an electrical company, an arborist company, and a maintenance solutions company, all at different stages of the process, all finding it hard to bridge the gap between what they were doing on the ground and what they needed to show on paper.
We understand that gap better than most. We lived in it for two years.
If that is where you are right now, keep going. You are probably making more progress than you realise.
And if you want a hand from someone who has been through it, reach out
SiteWise Gold. Seven consecutive years. 100% for the last two.
If you work with us on a commercial site, you can trust that our health and safety record has been independently assessed against a national standard and found to be exactly what it should be. Get in touch to find out more about how we work or to get a quote.
