Hi Tiger
In addition to what Kate has said.....
There are two schools of thought that are in vogue.
1. Behavioural safety.
2. Safety Differently aka Safety II or other names
....and "best practice" in 2024 is likely to mean bits of both, but the proponents of each of the two schools sometimes try to assert that only their model works, with some of those advocating BS tending to be more vocal on the issue.
So, BS is about checking that the worker follows the rules and engages in programmes such as submitting "observations", usually about what is not right, occasionally with more balance so as to comment on what is being done well.
Safety Differently tends to assume that decision making should be more devolved to those doing the job, so that when something goes wrong, instead of finding someone close to the front line to blame and perhaps adding yet more bureaucracy into managing health and safety, you get much more involvement from the workforce in deciding what will actually work. Safety as Done, rather than Safety as Imagined (where the imagination is usually that of people in suits).
BS also focuses on accident numbers and accident rates, perhaps with some refinement to look at so called SIFs (Serious Injuries and Fatalities) or latterly SIIFs (Serious Injuries, Illnesses and Fatalities). So lots of pretty graphs, which hopefully manage to show a declining trend year on year, and if that doesn't happen then history tells us that the cheating tends to start.
Problem is that not only is BS not a very smart way of dealing with the low probability, high consequence events of the type that Kate has referred to, but it is also poor when it comes to longer term impacts, such as most occupational ill health and/or environmental impacts.
Let's take your landscaping operations. BS will pick up when the people on the ground are not wearing their PPE, or perhaps not maintaining the "minimum sideways clearance" if you are doing the verge of a road, but it's very unlikely to notice that your plant could slide down the hillside and cause a multiple pile up on the road below.
....and if you do not have a procedure in place it is not likely to pick up that workers are at risk of HAVS until the first cases are confirmed, even less likely to recognise that some may pick up lung diseases from exposure to multiple airborne risks.
....and my guess is that your person from an accreditation body has never heard of Lyme's Disease or that they understand the biosecurity risks you could be spreading.