The old Safeguard and Employment Today websites were more than ten years old and looked their age. They clearly needed to be replaced, but with what?

We find out what our users really want

To help us find out, we interviewed a number of HR and health and safety practitioners; asking what kind of information was useful to them in their role, and how they would like to obtain it. We backed up this research with an online survey of more than 100 people with some level of HR and health and safety responsibility.

The result was that we identified five types of information of prime importance which people would like to access online:

1. news
2. compliance assistance
3. inspiration/best practice
4. suppliers who could help
5. and a sense of participating in a community of interest.

People also told us they still wanted to receive the Employment Today and Safeguard magazines in print, but to have the option of accessing them online to suit the needs of a wider audience.

We listen & put more online

The result is that we have decided to put all our human resources and health and safety content online and make it accessible via the Safeguard and Employment Today websites. There is free public access to the search and browse functionality, which will enable anyone – not just subscribers – to search for answers to their HR and health and safety queries. Of course, if you want to get beyond the search results screen to get the detailed content, you have to be a subscriber to one or more of our online products. But in many cases just the search results will help steer people in the right direction.

Before and after homepage screenshots

What's new & what remains the same

So for the first time the Employment Today and Safeguard magazines will be available as an online subscription, with access to an archive of editions stretching back five years. The newspaper of health & safety, Safeguard Update, will continue to be available in print or online.

Content relating to compliance – Safety Partner and HR Partner – is also available online. Our new Supplier Directories aim to eventually include every organisation offering products or services related to the core functions, providing quality information and solutions.

Come and have a play on the Employment Today or Safeguard website! There's an ipad to be won.

We continue to encourage a sense of community via the free Safeguard online forum (it already has more than 500 members), via Twitter, and with online surveys and competitions. Subscribers to Employment Today and Safeguard online will also be able to post comments about magazine stories, to add to the richness of the information available.

The new websites aim to be a one-stop-shop for anyone with a query or concern about HR or workplace health and safety in New Zealand.

We hope you enjoy them!