Five steps to being safe at work

Five easy steps to meet your obligations under occupational health and safety legislation

1. Understand your business or undertaking

First and foremost, if you operate or work in a business you should know and understand what the business does.  If you are in production, you need to know the processes and materials involved in making your items. Likewise, if you offer a service (retail, customer services etc), you should be aware of what is involved in the day to day running of the business.

Section 19 of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 requires:

A person conducting a business or undertaking must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of— 

(a) workers engaged, or caused to be engaged, by the person; and 

(b) workers whose activities in carrying out work are influenced or directed by the person,

while the workers are at work in the business or undertaking.

The section also goes on to afford the same level of protection to any person who’s health and safety may be affected by the business or undertaking.  

By gaining an understanding of the way the business operates, you will start to become aware of the hazards, risks and information related to materials purchased by the business that have an impact on health and safety.

2. Communication

Once you have established what your business does and the potential for how it could cause harm to people, you need to communicate that information.  This can be done in a number of ways but should never be done only one way (eg., staff notice board, email, payslip information, intranet sites, notification to neighbouring businesses).

If you are looking to change or implement a new process, piece of equipment or are designing something for the workplace that may have an impact on health and safety, Section 47 of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 requires you to consult with all workers who will be affected by the change.  It also pays to consult with relevant stakeholders such as subject matter experts, engineers and any relevant third party (such as unions etc).

The earlier this is done, the less likely the risk of health and safety implications once the change has been made which can be a costly fix.

3. Reporting and its impact on the health and safety culture

Something that is often debated between OHS professionals is how to change the health and safety culture of a workplace.  Many believe you need to have a full occupational health and safety management system in place before the culture can change (usually these are the ones who are offering the service of building you one for a nice fee). I believe to start the process of change you need to have one thing in place; a good reporting system (which is only one small component of an OHS management system).

Encourage staff to report all incidents/accidents AND near misses (the incidents that don’t result in an injury), in a positive way.  Accidents are not an indication of failure or incompetence; it is only a failure if the business does not act on the information gained as a result of the accident and subsequent investigation. By investigating accidents you can implement strategies to reduce the likelihood of a re-occurrence.   Reporting certain incidents is also a requirement of Section 35 of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011. Failure to notify your relevant authority could result in a fine of up to $50,000.

A simple form for recording the details of the incident that can be provided to management for review and necessary action could save your business a $50,000 fine.

4. Record management

Now that you have a way of being notified of incidents at work, you need to be able to record them.

Just as record management is paramount to keeping the tax man happy each year, it is no different for health and safety.  If the safety authority for your state or territory was to visit your workplace and asked you a series of questions about how you meet your obligations under health and safety legislation, what evidence do you have to back up your claims. And I can guarantee you they will ask for your records.

Keeping up to date records of training, licence requirements, incidents in the workplace and all other health and safety related matters only helps you in the long run.

5. Training

Once you really understand your business, have received feedback from your workers on how they can be better prepared to do the job safely and understand where the main risks to the business are through reporting, training can be offered to help everyone.

Training can range from the simple general health and safety awareness training through to the more task specific training and accreditation such as Manual Tasking, Vehicle use and dangerous goods handling.

But remember training is not the answer to everything.  If you offer training as a control measure without doing anything else you will fail to manage your health and safety risks.

So there are five quick and easy tips to help you start to manage your health and safety obligations. If you require assistance or have a question we are always happy to help. We have a saying at the Safety Guru Pty Ltd:

"The cost of a phone call could save you your business."

Neil Norman

Director

The Safety Guru Pty Ltd