About VerifyME
Practical experience. Formal qualifications. Systems that work in the real world.
VerifyME was founded by Richard Tohu, an Operational Risk Practitioner, workplace trainer and competency assessor with more than 40 years of practical industry experience.
Richard's approach to health and safety has been shaped by decades spent working in industry, training workers, assessing competency and developing practical workplace systems.
The philosophy behind VerifyME is simple:
Good health and safety is not about producing more paperwork. It is about understanding the work, identifying what can seriously hurt people, putting effective controls in place, and making sure workers are competent to do the job safely.
About Richard Tohu
Richard began working in industry in the 1980s and became a forklift operator instructor in 1986. His early career included forklift operations, warehousing, distribution, logistics, materials control, quality systems, procurement and supervision.
He subsequently moved into workplace training and adult education, developing and delivering training across occupational health and safety, powered mobile plant and other workplace activities.
His experience has included working as a tertiary occupational health and safety tutor and course developer, registered workplace assessor, NZTA-approved course provider, and workplace plant and equipment instructor.
In 2007 Richard received the New Zealand Association of Private Education Providers National Tutor of the Year Award.
Today he describes his role as an Operational Risk Practitioner.
That distinction is deliberate.
Richard does not attempt to be an expert in every aspect of occupational health and safety. His particular focus is operational risk — understanding how work is actually performed and helping businesses develop practical systems to manage the risks associated with it.
Qualifications and Competency
Richard's formal qualifications include:
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National Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety (Workplace Safety) — Level 3
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National Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety (Co-ordination) — Level 4
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National Certificate in Adult Education and Training — Level 5
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National Certificate in Adult Literacy Education — Vocational Tutor/Lecturer or Workplace Trainer
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National Certificate in Distribution — Level 3
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National Certificate in Business Administration — Level 4
His NZQA Record of Achievement also includes formal assessment in developing and implementing workplace hazard-management systems, auditing occupational health and safety management systems, workplace H&S planning, risk assessment, plant and machinery hazards, contractor management, incident investigation, confined-space work, working at height and work-permit systems.
Richard also holds practical training and assessment standards covering forklifts and powered industrial lift trucks, elevating work platforms, overhead cranes and working at height.
Importantly, his background isn't limited to undertaking training. He is formally trained in designing assessment and assessing candidate performance, supported by extensive adult-education qualifications and experience.
What qualifies VerifyME to help with your health and safety system?
It's a reasonable question — and one we are happy to answer.
VerifyME combines formal occupational health and safety qualifications with decades of practical industrial, training and assessment experience.
Our approach starts with the work itself.
What are your people actually doing?
What could seriously injure or kill somebody?
What controls are required?
Are those controls practical?
Do workers understand them?
And, importantly, can you demonstrate that the people carrying out the work are competent to do it safely?
We help businesses turn legislative requirements, WorkSafe guidance, recognised standards and accepted good practice into practical workplace systems, procedures, risk assessments, training and competency controls.
We also use modern technology, including AI-assisted research and analysis, to help review legislation, regulatory guidance, standards and technical information efficiently. AI is a tool, not a substitute for professional judgement. Recommendations and final outputs remain subject to human review.
We know where our expertise ends
Competence also means recognising your limitations.
Where an issue requires expertise outside our field — for example specialist engineering, occupational hygiene, medical, electrical or legal advice — we will say so and recommend that appropriate specialist advice is obtained.
We will not pretend to possess expertise that we don't have.
Verification of Competency
A unit standard can provide useful evidence that somebody has completed training.
But completing training and being competent to perform a particular job safely are not necessarily the same thing.
VerifyME places particular emphasis on Verification of Competency (VOC).
That means considering the worker's knowledge, practical ability, experience, familiarity with the equipment and workplace, and their demonstrated ability to perform the required work safely.
Training is part of the system.
Competency is the outcome.
Practical health and safety for real workplaces
VerifyME is particularly suited to small and medium-sized businesses that undertake operational or higher-risk work and need a system that their people can actually understand and use.
Our work commonly involves areas such as powered mobile plant, forklifts, elevating work platforms, lifting operations, working at height, workplace training, competency verification, SOPs, risk assessments and critical-risk controls.
The objective isn't to create the biggest health and safety manual.
It is to help you establish a simple, proportionate and defensible system that reflects your actual work and helps keep people safe.
VerifyME
Practical systems. Competent people. Safer work.