Adventure Activity Regulations

Technical Advisors

WorkSafe-approved Technical Advisors for auditing adventure activity operators in New Zealand. All listings verified against the WorkSafe approved list.

What is a Technical Advisor?

Under the Adventure Activity Regulations 2011, adventure activity operators must use an approved Technical Advisor to audit their Safety Management System at least every three years. TAs are experienced outdoor professionals approved by WorkSafe New Zealand.

More about Technical Advisors — WorkSafe →

TA directory is being populated

If you are an approved TA and want to be listed, contact us.

What Technical Advisors Want You to Know

TAs audit dozens of operators across the sector. These are the patterns they see most — the gaps that hold operators back, and the practical shifts that make a real difference to safety culture and compliance.

Common gaps TAs find

The SMS is built once and filed awayMany operators have a solid Safety Management System on paper — but it hasn't been touched since the last audit. A living SMS reflects how you actually operate today, not three years ago.
Staff qualification tracking is informalOperators often rely on memory or spreadsheets to track who holds what. Expired first aid, lapsed NZOIA currency, and undocumented quals are among the most frequent findings.
Near-misses go unreportedMost operators have a reporting system for incidents, but near-misses rarely make it in. TAs consistently find that the near-misses contain the most useful learning — and the hardest safety conversations.
Risk assessments are generic, not site-specificA risk assessment copied from a template and applied to every site doesn't reflect real hazards. TAs look for assessments tied to specific locations, conditions, and client groups.
Client briefings are inconsistentBriefing content often varies between guides. What seems obvious to an experienced guide may not be communicated at all to a first-time client — and that gap shows up in incident records.

Opportunities operators often miss

Shift from compliance to learningOperators who treat their SMS as a learning tool — not just a compliance document — tend to have better safety records and a stronger culture. The audit becomes a useful checkpoint, not a stressful event.
Involve your guides in hazard identificationThe people closest to the activity see hazards leadership doesn't. Operators who actively involve guides in identifying and reviewing risks catch things that would otherwise only surface in an incident.
Use qualification expiry as a development promptTracking expiry isn't just about compliance — it's a natural conversation starter about where a guide wants to develop next. The best operators connect qual renewal to progression, not just ticking a box.
Document the judgement calls, not just the decisionsWhen a guide decides to modify or cancel an activity, that reasoning rarely gets recorded. Capturing why decisions were made builds institutional knowledge and makes future training richer.
Prepare your team before the audit, not just yourselfTAs may speak with guides directly. Operators who brief their team — what the audit is, what to expect, why it matters — tend to have smoother audits and stronger team buy-in to safety processes.

Are you a TA with insights to add? We want this section to reflect real, current sector knowledge. If you work as a Technical Advisor and have patterns you'd like to share with operators — anonymously or attributed — get in touch.

Are you an approved Technical Advisor?

If you are on the WorkSafe approved TA list and would like to be listed here, get in touch. We will verify your status and list you for free.