How to Prepare Your Workplace for a Test & Tag Inspection

A smooth test & tag visit starts before the technician arrives. List all your equipment, clear access to power points and the switchboard, flag known-faulty items, brief your staff, and have prior compliance records ready to cut disruption and avoid missed items or repeat visits.

Introduction

You’ve booked your test & tag technician for Tuesday morning. On the day, you want them in and out with minimal disruption, every item accounted for, and a clean compliance report at the end of it, not a technician standing around waiting while someone hunts for the extension lead that lives behind the photocopier, or worse, a list of items they couldn’t reach because a cupboard was locked and nobody had the key.

A test & tag visit runs on efficiency. The less time your technician spends chasing down equipment or waiting for access, the more of your site they can get through in the booked window. A bit of preparation on your end turns the visit from a scavenger hunt into a straightforward walkthrough, and it’s the difference between a smooth appointment and one that drags into overtime charges or a second visit.

Here’s how to get your workplace ready.

1) List Everything That Needs Testing

Before the technician arrives, take a walk through your site and note every piece of plug-in electrical equipment. This covers more than the obvious desktop monitors and kettles:

• extension leads,
• power boards,
• laptop chargers,
• printers,
• heaters,
• fans,
• microwaves,
• vacuum cleaners,
• power tools, and
• anything else that gets plugged into a wall.

Not everything needs to be on the list. Under AS/NZS 3760:2022, the standard governing this kind of testing, equipment that’s

• hardwired into your building’s fixed wiring, or
• mounted more than 2.5 metres off the ground where nobody’s realistically going to touch it

… falls outside the scope. If you’re unsure whether something counts, include it anyway and let your technician make the call. Leaving an item off entirely is the bigger risk.

2) Put Equipment Out in the Open

Every workplace has a few pieces of equipment tucked away where nobody thinks to look:

• a heater in a storeroom,
• a spare power board in the bottom of a filing cabinet,
• a drill charger in someone’s desk drawer.

These are the items most likely to get missed, either because the technician doesn’t know they exist or because they’re too awkward to reach quickly.

Pull anything like this out into the open before the visit. If it’s difficult to move, at least make sure the storeroom or cabinet it’s sitting in is unlocked and accessible on the day.

3) Clear Access to Power Points and Switchboards

Technicians need to inspect the equipment itself and the outlets it plugs into. If your power points are hidden behind furniture, boxes, or a filing cabinet nobody’s moved in three years, that’s added time your technician spends shifting things around instead of testing.

The same goes for your switchboard, particularly if your booking includes RCD testing alongside test & tag. Switchboards tend to end up behind stock, cleaning supplies, or whatever else needed somewhere to go. Make sure yours is reachable and that whoever’s on site knows where the key or access panel is.

4) Flag Faulty Equipment

If there’s a heater with a frayed cord, a power board that’s been sparking, or anything else you’ve been meaning to throw out, don’t quietly bin it before the visit and hope it goes unnoticed, and don’t leave it plugged in expecting nobody will spot it either. Point it out. Your technician will fail and tag it regardless, and telling them in advance saves time on the inspection while giving you a proper record that the item was identified and removed.

5) Tell Your Team What’s Happening

A test & tag visit inspects equipment on every desk, kitchen bench, and workstation in the building, so it helps if your staff know the technician is coming. A short heads-up the day before

• what’s happening,
• roughly what time, and
• a request not to unplug or move equipment once it’s been tagged

… prevents the problem of someone unknowingly pulling a freshly tested cord out to charge their phone or blocking access to a power point because they didn’t know anyone needed it.

If your site runs shifts or has areas that are only staffed at certain times, mention that when you book, so the visit can be scheduled around when those spaces are accessible.

6) Have Your Paperwork Ready

If this isn’t your first test & tag, dig out your last compliance report before the visit. It tells your technician

• what’s already been tested and when,
• which items are approaching their retest date, and
• whether anything failed last time and needs a follow-up check.

If you’re switching providers or this is your first formal inspection, having even a rough list of your electrical equipment—an asset register, an inventory spreadsheet, anything—gives the technician a starting point rather than building one from scratch on site.

Under the Work Health and Safety Regulation 2017, the person in control of a workplace has a duty to keep electrical equipment safe to use, and that obligation comes with an expectation that you can show records of what’s been tested, by whom, and when. You’ll need to produce that paperwork if an inspector, insurer, or auditor ever asks.

7) Nominate a Point of Contact

Someone on your team should be available, even briefly, to

• let the technician in,
• unlock anything that needs unlocking, and
• answer questions about equipment they don’t recognise.

It doesn’t need to be a manager. Anyone familiar enough with the site to say “That heater is in the break room” or “The switchboard’s through the fire door” will do. Having nobody available to answer basic questions is one of the more common causes of a visit running longer than it should.

Quick Checklist Before Your Technician Arrives

1. Every plug-in item is accounted for and out in the open.
2. Power points and the switchboard are accessible.
3. Storerooms, cabinets, and cupboards holding equipment are unlocked.
4. Known faulty items are flagged, not hidden.
5. Staff have been told when the visit is happening.
6. Your last compliance report or equipment list is on hand.
7. Someone’s available on site to answer questions.

Let Us Handle the Rest

Once your site’s ready, the visit itself should move quickly and leave you with a full, accurate record rather than a handful of items marked “not located.” At Success Works, we build our scheduling around minimising disruption to your day, and our technicians work efficiently through everything on your list, RCDs included, before handing you a digital report you can file away and forget about until your next retest is due.

Every booking also puts your compliance spend behind meaningful change. Our technicians are women who’ve faced genuine barriers to employment, who were given proper training and steady, skilled work through Success Works. If you’re ready to book a visit, or you’d like a hand putting together your equipment list, get in touch with our team and we’ll help you get set up.