How to establish a WHS system

Your goal

Your goal in this unit is to establish an Workplace Health and Safety (WHS) system for your organization or section, and then to get it working. Managers play an important role in ensuring the safety of the workplace and the well-being of their staff.

This is relevant to all managers in any context. The e-book takes a systems approach and ensures compliance with relevant legislative requirements.

Your organization. Your WHS system needs to be appropriate for the size and complexity of your organization. For example, you need a very simple policy and procedure document if you have a two-person office. A long, complicated document is unhelpful and will probably be ignored.

But if you have a firm of 1,000 employees in heavy industry spread over several sites, you will need a longer, quite complex policy. A short, simple policy might be inadequate and legally very risky.

Internet search for examples. Your WHS documents do not have to be very original and may be based on examples from other organizations. Do a simple Internet search to see lots of examples. However, your documents may not breach copyright and must address your specific needs. You will be accountable for everything in them.

Do some homework

You need to do some homework to find out exactly what kind of WHS system you need.

Legal requirements

First, find out your legal requirements. The simplest place to start is the website of your state government agency for WHS. It should explain the laws and codes of practice that affect you, either as simple summaries or as printable info sheets. Employers have more obligations than employees, so have a look at the government site that oversees workers compensation as well. If it's not completely clear, phone them.

You will need a detailed knowledge of all WHS legislation that is relevant to your role, and how to apply them.

The laws vary from state to state, but normally include:

• common law duties to meet general duty of care
• regulations and approved codes of practice relating to hazards in the work area
• establishment of consultative arrangements including those for health and safety representatives, and health and safety committees
• effective management of hazards
• providing information and training in safe operating procedures, procedures for workplace hazards, hazard identification, risk assessment and risk control, and emergency and evacuation procedures
• maintenance and confidentiality of WHS records

Industry-related legal requirements

Some industries have specific legislation hat impacts on WHS, such as tilt-up construction. This also includes any accreditation requirements (e.g. as a childcare or aged care centre)

Industry

Risks and approaches vary greatly between industries, so look for industry-specific information on risks, and on patterns of WHS accidents and sickness. (see fed website.) Look for industry surveys, and ask people yourself.

Your insurer

Insurance organizations are experts in risk. You need to know what you are insured for, and what risks the insurer attaches to your organization's activities.

Your organization

Then look at your own organization to identify patterns of WHS hazards, accidents and sickness. You should also make a list of of any specific risks in your organization, or relating to particular jobs and projects. You may have records to look at, but you can also interview people.

Your particular organization’s particular WHS needs are determined by many factors. Some of them are discussed throughout these notes:

• Its size
• Its industry
• The number of sites
• legal requirements for your organization, and
• whatever you need to maintain adequate insurance cover.

Other factors that might be relevant are:

• Its culture, whether staff are diligent or slack in WHS.
• Whether you have employees who don't speak English very well (they can't understand instructions).
• Whether you have employees who don't read effectively. Some simply aviod reading as much s possible, while others don't understand instructions).
• You have a high staff turnover, so that keeping them well-trained is more difficult.
• Whether you have employees from other cultures who accept high risk as normal or who are embarrassed to report problems.
• Whether you have a constant workflow or whether work comprises separate projects for which WHS must be separately managed.

Your staff

You might like to get your staff on board earlier rather than later, because you need their support to make it work. Start by identifying who should be in your consultation group:

• In a large organization, it will probably be some senior managers, WHS officers, and employee representatives.
• In a small organization it will usually be your staff meeting.

Explain what you plan to do and why. Put it in a light that adds value to your organization. In other words, spend time on things that you need and put minimal time into aspects that you will probably not use.

A WHS policy

Write an WHS policy that includes:

1. The purpose.
2. WHS objectives
3. The organization's commitment to good WHS practice
4. Define WHS responsibilities for all workplace personnel.
5. Identifying, assessing and managing risks. This will vary according to your organization and your kinds of risks. For example, if you do project work, you also need a Job Safety Analysis system for each project.
6. What needs to be written down (e.g. incident reports) and what doesn't
7. Any mandatory reporting (e.g. serious accidents)

Write a set of procedures

A procedure is simply a set of instructions on how to do something. When the procedure needs a form, consider printing the procedure at the top of the form.

1. A procedure for identifying hazards, and assessing and controlling risks.
2. Use the the hierarchy of control, which is the order of risk control measures from most to least preferred. In general:
1. Some hazards can be fixed straight away and don't need a report.
2. Some hazards can be fixed straight away, but need an oral report to a supervisor. They might be discussed later in a staff meeting.
3. Some hazards can be fixed straight away, but still need a written report.
4. Some hazards can't be fixed straight away and need a written report for someone else to fix.
5. You need a written report if the hazard has legal or insurance consequences and is a mid or high risk of harm
3. A procedure for investigating serious incidents.
4. A system of consultation.
5. An approach to training staff.
• Smaller organizations often use a mentoring or buddy system.
• Bigger firms and more dangerous industries normally need a written system as well.
6. A procedure for informing Workcover and insurers.
7. A set of emergency procedures. Fire evalucation is mandatory, but you will need procedures for any other foreseeable emergencies.
8. If your organization is larger, you will probably need:
• a line of authority, which includes designated WHS officers.
• a policy on how to communicate clearly in a emergency.
• a procedure for resolving conflicts with employees and/or employee representatives.

Set up a records system

You now need a records system that you can use as to demonstrate how well your system is working. It also needs to be good enough for you to identify patterns of occupational injury and disease in your organization.

Examples of different kinds of WHS records are below, but you should only have those that are relevant to your organization:

• Hazard report forms/hazard register
• Strategies to manage identified risks
• Audit or inspection reports
• Fire extinguishers inspection labels
• "What to do … " literature
• First aid/medical post records
• Workplace environmental monitoring records
• Induction, instruction and training
• Manufacturer’s and supplier’s information including dangerous goods storage lists
• Building evaluation plans
• Hazardous substances registers
• Incident reports
• Plant and equipment maintenance and testing reports
• Workers compensation and rehabilitation records
• Reporting to government
• Insurance reporting

Establish an WHS quality system

You now need a way of ensuring the quality of your WHS system, and it also must be written down and consistent with your organization's overall quality system. Depending on your organization, the system might include the following kinds of records:

• audit and inspection reports
• workplace environmental monitoring records
• consultation e.g. meetings of WHS committees, staff meeting agendas with WHS items and actions
• records of days off due to workplace accidents
• workers compensation and rehabilitation records

You also need a way of reviewing your WHS system. Decide how often you will measure and evaluate the system against your organization's WHS objectives and overall quality system.

It will normally be looking for ways to improve based on:

• An analysis of any significant WHS patterns and statistics
• An analysis of any major incidents
• Updating policy, procedure, and forms
• Checking whether you are getting the right things written down, missing things that should be written down, or creating unhelpful paperwork.
• Checking whether the time spent in WHS is well-spent.
• Checking that you still meet your legal and insurance requirements

In a small organization with no WHS problems, a review will be an annual staff meeting item. If your organization is large, has high WHS risks, or many incidents, you will need to do it much more often and it will be much more complex.

Put it all into practice

Again, this will be simple in a small organization, but much more involved in a larger organization.

1. Write a set of notes and give WHS training to all your staff.
2. Assign people the task of putting the new system in place, and give them a time-frame. The amount of funding you need to allocate might range from negligible to very substantial, depending on your hazards and how well they are already managed.
3. As you go, look for inadequacies in your system and act to fix them. You might find that actual practice needs to change so you need to up-date the procedures. You might also need specialist WHS advice, so you need to know when you need it.
4. Inform your employees about the outcomes of participation and consultation. Be clear and prompt.
5. The participative arrangements will sometimes bring up problems. It is your job to resolve them promptly. Follow your issue resolution procedures.
6. When you have changes in the workplace, make sure you identify any hazards at the planning, design and evaluation stages so that the proposed changes don't create new hazards.