Assessing and maintaining compliance
You should assess and maintain the ongoing compliance with OHS or WHS legislation. You should regularly check that you meet these.
You should check that:
➢ WHS documents are updated
➢ You consult all personnel according to legislation requirements
➢ You include self-employed/contracted workers and visitors in your
policy
➢ All staff are fully trained and regularly refreshed with compliance
➢ Any accidents/incidents (including near misses) are analysed to find the cause and rectified.
You can use the safe work Australia website: http://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/sites/SWA (accessed 23/06/2016) to research any changes to legislation, regulatory requirements or standards and codes.
Employer and employee responsibilities
Employers have a responsibility to provide a work environment free from hazards and to ensure the health and safety of themselves, their workers and other people in the workplace.
Employers meet these responsibilities by complying with the relevant workplace health and safety regulations that govern their type of business and by following the Advisory Standard or adopting an effective ways of managing exposure to risks. Employers who do not meet their obligations may face severe penalties (fines, imprisonment, lawsuits).
Workers meet their responsibilities by following organisational WHS procedures and acting in a way that does not place at risk their own health and safety or that of any other person. This relates to removing or dealing with hazards of any type.
Responsibilities can vary depending on their industry, job role and training.
For example, in relation to manual handling, employers must provide a workplace designed to minimise risk from hazards of back injury. This includes features such as furniture, equipment and containers used in the workplace.
In cases where manual handling is necessary, employers must provide one or more of the following:
➢ Mechanical lifting aids
➢ Sufficient staff to allow team-lifting procedures
➢ Adequate information, instruction, training and supervision to enable employees to work without risk to health and safety.
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Workers must ensure that wherever possible:
➢ Correct lifting procedures are followed
➢ Mechanical aids or team-lifting procedures are used.
The workplace policies and procedures of an organisation should be dependent on the type of work performed subject to discussion between employees and the employers who are required to carry out the work, as well as their representatives on health and safety issues.
Creating a safer workplace
Risk assessment and improvement form a process of constantly evaluating communication and updating of information. Once arrangements for managing WHS and workplace procedure are put into place, these must be reviewed regularly.
The process is ongoing. This can include events such as when new equipment is purchased, when new hazards arise, there is new staff or when there are other changes to the work environment, these must be discussed and dealt with.
A culture of safety would encourage training updates whenever individual workers or teams request it. All workers would then fully understand their responsibilities.
Ways in which you could contribute to health and safety practice in the workplace include:
➢ Reflecting on your own work and practice and those of others in the workplace in relation to managing WHS
➢ Considering the special needs of individuals or groups as appropriate
➢ Behaving in a safe manner and encouraging others to do so
➢ Exercising your rights and responsibilities as a worker.
As a worker, you should:
➢ Follow the instructions you have been given for workplace health and safety, e.g. manual handling, personal safety, and emergencies
➢ Help to constantly maintain a safe and healthy environment
➢ Assess hazards and reduce risks in all areas and locations you work in
➢ Help staff, clients, visitors and others to comply with health and safety standards.
Monitoring compliance
The following is an overall guide toward understanding how to use monitoring, its value as part of a compliance process and how to integrate it into working practice.
Key areas to consider include:
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➢ Objectives – At its most basic, compliance helps to ensure that a business activity is taking place and is working as intended – that the expected outcomes are occurring.
o identify, review and determine how to handle variations to the expected outcomes.
o identifies intentional deviations, such as when an employee differs from a defined procedure for their own benefit.
o improve the accuracy, efficiency and effectiveness of procedures as it identifies possible or actual failures in safe working practice.
➢ Timing – Monitoring compliance can occur before, during or after a working activity takes place.
o pre-activity monitoring includes: Management approval, such as for high risk activities, safety checks, log keeping, etc.
o during activity monitoring includes: Looking at complex procedures, ensuring accuracy of processes, ensuring safe working practice is maintained, etc.
o post activity monitoring includes: Queries about working practice, overview of less risky procedures.
➢ Scale – The amount of monitoring will vary. For the most sensitive or high risk activities, monitoring may involve each step in the procedure. Alternatively, it may act as a ‘spot check’ in looking only at randomly selected areas.
o can identify areas of high risk or areas with suspicion that compliance is not being followed.
o can monitor areas of interest, e.g. staff members or groups with higher numbers of accidents.
➢ Who performs the monitoring – Who conducts the monitoring can vary based on the activity’s sensitivity and staff’s requisite competence, including relevant skills and knowledge.
o lesser risk – Delegate monitoring to staff not directly involved in an activity, who then report back
o higher risk- Involve management or appropriate staff with expertise
o assign monitoring roles to people with the appropriate capabilities, objectivity and authority.
➢ Metrics – The monitor must be able to determine whether a practice meets, comes close to or fails to meet its goals, and the staff involved should be able to do the same. If there is a failure, the monitor needs to know the extent of the failure and, if possible, the reason why.
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o metrics help the monitor to know whether an activity is improving when the metrics improve (or get worse). Even results that achieve but come close to missing objectives are useful, and monitoring of these metrics ensures that appropriate action can be taken.
➢ Outcomes – Monitoring helps management to affect changes when an activity does not meet or is at risk of not meeting its intended results.
o unaddressed failures or other deficiencies not only weaken a process, they also can create unexpected liability if regulators, authorities or others determine that the organisation did not take reasonable measures to achieve compliance.
o this means that the outcome of monitoring must be more than identifying actual or potential non-compliance; it must lead to management taking prompt action to address the risks involved in non-compliance.
o promoting that the results of monitoring will be reported also encourages organisations and staff to both monitor and make appropriate changes.
o a monitoring outcome also may include identifying changes to the underlying activity or external environment that may require changes to the working practice to ensure continued compliance.
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