work health and safety

Workplace health and safety (WHS) education is critical to ensuring a business reduces risk, is legally compliant and develops a safety culture. A workplace health and safety course will arm you with the skills and knowledge to manage risk for an organisation, and is ideal for Workplace Health and Safety Advisors, Officers and Managers.

In this Lead WHS Risk Management course you will learn to assess risk and develop, implement and evaluate risk controls appropriate to the work environment. You will also discover factors that impact risk management and how to manage the hazard identification and reporting processes with WHS management systems.

Learning Outcomes

Outcomes achieved by undertaking a workplace health and safety course include:

• Learning about the sources of data that apply to risk management
• Exploring internal and external information
• Gaining an understanding of the problem-solving process
• Studying health and safety legislation for risk management
• Examining duty holders – people employed by the PCBU
• Understanding the consultation process
• Attaining knowledge of who should be consulted and who should participate
• Gaining insights into understanding your responsibilities
• Learning about the roles and responsibilities that impact risk management
• Exploring good communication
• Gaining an understanding of factors that impact risk management
• Studying the scope of the process and overall objectives
• Examining how hazard identifications are conducted
• Understanding formal audits
• Attaining knowledge of leading the hazard identification process
• Gaining insights into identifying and documenting hazards
• Learning about risk assessments
• Exploring how to rate the potential severity
• Gaining an understanding of how to apply knowledge of legislation, hazards and risk factors
• Studying how to document information about risk assessments
• Examining how to inform everyone in the organisation of risk assessment
• Understanding risk controls and procedures
• Attaining knowledge of the hierarchy of control
• Gaining insights into selecting risk controls
• Learning about the WHSMS and WHSIS
• Exploring a systematic approach to health and safety
• Gaining an understanding of management system inputs
• Studying health and safety outcomes
• Examining planning
• Understanding the implementation process
• Attaining knowledge of how to develop a communication plan
• Gaining insights into establishing key performance indicators (KPIs)
• Learning how KPIs contribute to the evaluation of risk management process
• Exploring how to modify controls and risk management processes
• Gaining an understanding of accurate record-keeping

And more!

A Person Conduction a Business or Undertaking (PCBU)

According to Safe Work Australia and as you’ll learn in our workplace health and safety course, a PCBU “has a primary duty to ensure the health and safety of workers while they are at work in the business or undertaking and others who may be affected by the carrying out of work, such as visitors”.

The Primary Duty 

The primary duty of care requires PCBUs to ensure so far as is reasonably practicable the:

• provision and maintenance of a safe work environment, safe plant and structures and safe systems of work
• safe use, handling and storage of plant, structures, and substances
• provision of accessible and adequate facilities (for example access to washrooms, lockers, and dining areas)
• provision of any instruction, training, information and supervision
• monitoring of workers’ health and conditions at the workplace and
• maintenance of any accommodation owned or under their management and control to ensure the health and safety of workers occupying the premises.

The Workplace Environment 

It is also the PCBU’s duty to provide and maintain a safe working environment, which includes:

• the workplace layout
• lighting
• work areas
• floors and surfaces
• entries and exits
• fixtures and fittings

They must manage risks with:

• remote or isolated work (including working from home)
• airborne contaminants
• hazardous atmospheres
• storing flammable or combustible substances
• falling objects.

They must also provide adequate facilities and give workers access to clean and safe facilities and maintain them. Facilities include:

• toilets
• drinking water
• washing and eating facilities
• first aid equipment and facilities.

Instruction, Training and Supervision 

A PCBU must also:

• provide adequate training, information and instruction to ensure that each worker is safe from injury and risks to health
• ensure the provision of first aid equipment and facilities and prepare, maintain, and implement emergency plans
• manage risks associated with remote or isolated work (including working from home), airborne contaminants, hazardous atmospheres, storage of flammable or combustible substances and falling objects, and
• comply with requirements regarding the use of personal protective equipment.

Managing Risks to Health and Safety 

Part of a workplace health and safety course is also learning how a PCBU manages risks to health and safety. They have a duty to ensure the health and safety of workers and other people in the workplace. They must also seek to eliminate risks to health and safety as far as reasonably practical. If they can’t eliminate risk, they must minimise risks as far as is reasonably practicable.

What is “Reasonably Practicable”

This term means that which is or was reasonably able to be done at a particular time to ensure health and safety measures are in place, taking into account relevant matters including:

• the likelihood of the hazard or risk occurring
• the degree of harm that might result from the hazard or risk
• knowledge about the hazard or risk, and ways of minimising or eliminating the risk
• the availability and suitability of ways to eliminate or minimise the risk, and
• after assessing the extent of the risk and the available ways of eliminating or minimising the risk, the cost associated with available ways of eliminating or minimising the risk, including whether the cost is grossly disproportionate to the risk.

Source:

2022, Duties of a PCBU, Safe Work Australia

WHS Trends in Australia in 2022

According to leading multinational law firm, Azhurst, the top four WHS risks of 2002 are:

1. The cognitive health of leaders

Throughout 2022, the organisation’s Boards and executives will face a multitude of strategic challenges, including:

• The global labour shortage due to prolonged border closures and the effects of negative net migration.
• The challenges of attracting and retaining top talent in a highly competitive global marketplace.
• Retraining their workforce with the digital capacity to successfully execute their transformation agenda and succeed in the current environment.
• Additional cyber security risks are associated with the need to execute digital transformation rapidly.
• The rising social discourse around inequality and climate change.

2. Sexual Harassment and Psychosocial Risk

Sexual harassment is not a women’s issue — it is a societal issue, which every Australian, and every workplace, can contribute to addressing.

Its associated psychosocial risk is a significant issue in many workplaces. It is also a WHS and an employment risk that requires employers to turn their minds to operational and legal issues, including the implementation of a targeted risk management framework.

Organisations need to understand their repetitional and legal risks. They can do this by undertaking a risk assessment of sexual harassment and psychosocial risk at the workplace.

3. COVID-19 Risk Management

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the boundary between home and work has been blurred. Varying forms of “hybrid” work are now the norm. But leaders need to consider what it means for performance, productivity, and mental and physical health and safety.

Organisations who continue to put the health and safety of their people first, conduct full risk assessments, and communicate and consult well will continue to lead the way in this disruptive, ever-changing risk environment.

Questions leaders can ask to include what assessments, modelling and consultation has occurred to manage the future of the workplace in a changing risk environment, what are the legal requirements, and how are they best fulfilled?

4. Health and Safety Leadership

In 2022, employees will be looking at leaders and asking themselves what they are doing about physical and mental safety at work. Workplaces and communities are becoming more “safety informed” and are acutely aware of the many ways organisational safety culture impacts their personal wellbeing. Therefore, leaders must be ready with the tools to deliver safer outcomes.

Over the past few years, safety leadership has also become a key organisation risk both externally and internally. So leaders should be asking themselves whether their safety measures are reactive or proactive and whether they know how to actively discharge their safety duties.

 

Feel confident in your ability to manage work-related health and safety risk management activities for an organisation with a workplace health and safety course such as our Lead WHS Risk Management course.