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| Q. |
Who should be involved
in Risk Management? |
| A. |
The employer must consult with employees about any OHS matter
that affects them – this includes the risk management process
- (see chapters 2 and 3 of the OHS Regulation 2001).
Involving employees in risk management can be done through the
consultative arrangements that have been agreed to at the workplace
(e.g. health and safety committee, health and safety representative
or through other agreed arrangements).
Consulting with employees about the hazards and how to eliminate
or control them will help:
- To comply with the law
- To get the whole team involved in the process
- To give you many different points of view
- To encourage safe thinking
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| Q. |
What responsibilities does an employer have in relation to injury
management? |
| A. |
Injury management plans focus on early intervention. As an employer
you must:
- Notify your insurer within forty eight (48) hours of becoming
aware of any workplace injury that seems to be a significant
injury is likely to result in the worker being partially or totally
incapacitated
for work (or a combination of both) for more than seven (7)
days. (If the injury does not seem to be a significant injury,
you must
notify your insurer within seven (7) days of becoming aware
of the injury;
- Co-operate and participate in the establishment
of an injury management place for an injured worker;
-
If a Category 1 employer, you must nominate one of your staff as
the Rehabilitation Coordinator is responsible for preparing the
return-to-work plan in consultation with the injured worker’s
treating doctor, the workplace supervisor, and the injured
worker;
- If you are a small business proprietor, you will usually assume
the role of the rehabilitation coordinator.
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| Q. |
What is OHS consultation? |
| A. |
OHS consultation involves:
- The sharing of relevant information about OHS and welfare with employees;
- Giving employees the opportunity to express their views and
to contribute to the resolution of OHS and welfare issues;
- Valuing the views of employees and taking them into account.
Consultation enables employees to contribute to the decisions
that affect their health, safety and welfare. It helps employers
and employees to work together to seek solutions that lead to healthier
and
safer
workplaces.
Chapter 3 of the OHS Regulation 2001 covers consultation
requirements. See also Section 13 of the OHS Act
2000 which sets out the employers “duty
to consult” with employees about OHS matters. |
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| Q. |
Is there any compulsory OHS consultation training for new OHS Committee
members and OHS representatives? |
| A. |
There is compulsory OHS consultation training for new OHS committee
members and OHS representatives. The OHS Regulation 2001 Clause 31
provides information on the training to be undertaken.
It is the employer's responsibility to ensure that each person who
is a member of an OHS committee, or elected as an OHS representative,
is provided with a course in training as soon as practicable (unless
the employee has previously undertaken a course of training) (Clause
31(1)). |
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| Q. |
What is Risk Management? |
| A. |
An employer has an obligation to identify and assess foreseeable
hazards. If it is not reasonably practicable to eliminate the risk,
the employer must take steps to control the risk.
Risk management is covered in detail in Chapter 2 of the OHS
Regulation 2001. Other chapters also refer to obligations of
risk management
as they apply to specific hazards, activities or places of work.
Risk management involves assessing the harm of those hazards.
It is the process of:
- Identifying any foreseeable hazard - anything in the workplace that
has potential to harm anyone at the workplace, eg moving parts
in machinery, toxic chemicals, manual handling tasks.
- Assessing the risk from the hazard - finding out how significant
the risk is eg will it cause a serious injury, illness
or death and how likely is this to occur?
- Eliminating the hazard or if this is not possible, controlling
the risk from the hazard - implementing strategies to eliminate
or control the hazard eg. design equipment differently, add machine guards,
use safer chemicals, providing lifting devices to minimise
manual handling or use personal protective equipment.
Note:
This phase is more commonly referred to simply as risk
control but the possible elimination of the hazard(s)
must be considered
before risk control is undertaken.
Reviewing risk assessment – to monitor
and improve control measures and find safer ways
of doing
things. (Clause
9 of the
OHS Regulation)
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| Q. |
Who is responsible for Risk Management? |
| A. |
The employer must undertake risk management for all foreseeable
hazards in their workplace that may arise from work activities and
that have the potential to harm employees and any other person at
that workplace.
In particular the employer must take reasonable care to identify
hazards arising from (but not limited to):
- Work premises
- Work practices, systems and shift working arrangements (including
hazardous processes, psychological and fatigue related
hazards)
- Plant (including the transport, installation, erection, commissioning,
use, repair, maintenance, dismantling, storage or disposal
of plant)
- Hazardous substances (including the production, handling, use, storage,
transport or disposal of hazardous substances)
- Presence of asbestos
- Manual handling (including potential for occupational overuse injuries)
- Layout and condition of the workplace (eg lighting and workstation
design)
- Physical working environment (including the potential for
any one or more of:
- electrocution; drowning; fire or explosion;
people slipping, tripping or falling;
contact with moving
objects; exposure
to noise, heat,
cold, vibration, radiation, static electricity
or a contaminated atmosphere)
- Potential for workplace violence and
- Biological hazards.
(Clause 200 (2) of OHS Regulation 2001).
Others must also undertake risk management in relation
to hazards and risks that arise out of their
activities, for example, designers, manufacturers, suppliers, and controllers
of premises all have obligations - see Chapters 4 and 5 of OHS Regulation
2001. |
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|
| Q. |
Who should be involved in Risk Management? |
| A. |
The employer must consult with employees about any OHS matter that
affects them - this includes the risk management process – (see
Chapters 2 and 3 of the OHS Regulation 2001).
Involving employees in risk management can be done through the
consultative arrangements that have been agreed to at the workplace
(e.g. health and safety committee, health and safety representative
or through other agreed arrangements).
Consulting with employees about the hazards and how to eliminate
or control them will help:
-
to comply with the law
- to get the whole team involved in the process
- to give you many different points of view
- to encourage safe thinking.
|
| Q. |
What if the employer uses a supervisor or employee or consultant
to undertake the Risk Management on their behalf? |
| A. |
Obligations for risk management remain the responsibility of the
employer regardless of any delegation or contracting arrangements
that may be made in carrying out the risk management process. |
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| Q. |
What is a hazard? |
| A. |
A hazard is anything (including work practices or procedures) that
has the potential to harm the health or safety of a person. (Clause
3 of the OHS Regulation 2001).
Hazards can arise from:
-
The workplace environment
- The use of plant and substances
- Poor work design or practices
- Inappropriate management systems and procedures
- Human behaviour
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| Q. |
What is risk? |
| A. |
Risk is the significance of the hazard in terms of likelihood and
severity of any possible injury or illness. |
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| Q. |
I have a number of hazards that are the same but occur in different
places. Do I have to do a separate Risk Management for each of them? |
| A. |
A general risk assessment of the hazard is enough, however you
will need to examine the different places or circumstances in which
the hazard occurs and make sure that your risk assessment outcomes
are applicable.
You will also need to check that the risk is eliminated or effectively
controlled for each place or circumstance.
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| Q. |
What is risk control? |
| A. |
It is not enough to identify hazards. Action must be taken to do
something to fix (ie eliminate or control) the hazard before it has
the chance to cause injury and illness. This is risk control.
The first priority of the employer is to try to eliminate the
risk altogether. (Clause 11(1) of the Regulation). If this
is not reasonably
practical, the employer must take action to control the risk.
(Clause 11(2).
An employer must also make sure that all measures taken to eliminate
or control risks to health and safety are properly used and
maintained. (Clause 11(3).
The Regulation (Clause 5) provides a specific meaning for “control
of risks” when it is not possible for the employer to eliminate
them. (This is sometimes referred to as the hierarchy of control).
The Regulation ranks control strategies from the most effective
to the least effective strategy. The employer must take the
following measures (Clause 5(1) in the order specified to
minimise the
risk
to the lowest possible level. (Remember that the employer
should only be using this list if they have not been able to
eliminate
the hazard):
- substitute the hazard with a hazard that poses a lower risk of harm
eg less hazardous chemical or different equipment
- isolate the hazard from the person put at risk eg. machine guards,
remote handling
- minimise the risk by engineering means eg. ventilation
- use administrative means to minimise the risk eg. safe work methods,
training, job rotation
- use personal protective equipment (PPE) eg hard hat, respirator,
gloves.
If one of these measures is not enough to minimise
the risk to the lowest possible level a
combination is required.
(Clause
104(2)). |
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| Q. |
Are there any exemptions for Risk Management? |
| A. |
No. There are no exemptions for risk management.
Risk management applies to all hazards and all workplaces covered
by the OHS Act and Regulations |
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| Q. |
When must risk management be done? |
| A. |
Under Clause 9(3) of the Regulation, employers must identify hazards:
- before using any premises as a place of work
- before and during installation, erection, commissioning or alteration
of plant in a place of work
- before changes to work practices and systems of work are introduced
- before hazardous substance are introduced into a place of work
- while work is being carried out
-
when new or additional health and safety information relevant to
the employer’s business becomes available.
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| Q. |
What are some ways in which you can identify hazards? |
| A. |
A number of procedures can be implemented in your organisation
to enable workplace hazards to be identified:
- observation;
- consultation;
- workplace inspections;
- health and environment monitoring;
- safety audits;
- monitoring complaints;
- monitoring injury and illness records.
|
| Q. |
What is Risk Management? |
| A. |
If, as an employer, you have identified a hazard you must assess
how dangerous it is. Ask yourself: how likely is it that an injury
or illness will occur and how seriously could someone be affected?
This is risk assessment.
The level of significance of the risk will determine the priority
assigned to its elimination or control action taken to eliminate
the risk, or, if that is not practicable, control the risk of
harm occurring.
There are many types of hazards and methods for assessing them
will differ. Clause 9 of the OHS Regulation 2001 provides information
about how to assess risks. An employer must:
- Evaluate the likelihood of an injury or illness occurring and the
likely severity of any injury or illness;
- Review all available health and safety information relevant
to the hazard (for example, information from the supplier of
plant, material safety data sheets, labels, registers of installed asbestos;
- Review results of biological monitoring and atmospheric monitoring
of atmospheric contaminants, previous incident, injury
or illness reports);
- Identify factors that contribute to the risk (for example, layout
and condition of working environment; capability, skill,
experience and age of people ordinarily doing the work;
- systems of work being
used and reasonably foreseeable abnormal conditions);
- Identify actions necessary to eliminate or control the risk;
- Identify any records necessary to be kept to ensure that risks are
eliminated or controlled (including how long they should
be kept).
Hazpak – Making Your Workplace Safer provides some
useful guidance. It suggests that for
each hazard the employer should:
- Judge the severity of any harm. Consider if it could cause:
- permanent disability, ill health or death;
- long term illness or serious injury;
- require medical attention with someone off work for several
days; or
- someone to require first
aid.
- Judge the likelihood of the harm occurring:
- very likely - (could happen any time)
- likely - (could happen sometime)
- unlikely - (could happen but very rarely)
- very unlikely - (could happen but probably never will)
Note: Under Clause 12 of the Regulation, an employer must
review a risk assessment,
including any measures adopted to control the risk, whenever:
- There is evidence that the risk assessment is no longer valid; or
- Injury or illness results from exposure to the particular hazard;
or
- A significant change is proposed in the place of work or in work
practices or procedures to which the assessment relates.
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| Q. |
Who has responsibilities with regard to Personal Protective Equipment? |
| A. |
Employers must provide personal protective equipment (PPE) to
workers and visitors as a control measure when work hazards are
unable to
be eliminated or adequately controlled by other methods. (Clause
15 of the OHS Regulation 2001).
An employer must undertake a risk assessment before choosing
PPE as the appropriate control measure. (See Risk Management
FAQS.)
PPE must be provided when other methods of control do not adequately
control the risk. It is the least preferred means of control
and can be used in addition to other methods to minimise the
risk to
the lowest level reasonably practical. Clause 15 of the Regulation states that the employer must:
-
ensure that the equipment provided is appropriate for the person
and controls the risk for that person;
- ensure that the person using PPE is informed about any limitations
of the equipment;
- ensure that appropriate instruction and training is provided so
that the equipment controls the risk for the person;
- ensure that the equipment is properly maintained, repaired or replaced
as necessary to control the risk for the person;
- provide clean and hygienic equipment;
- ensure that equipment is stored in a place provided
by the employer for that purpose;
- clearly identify places of work where PPE must be used.
Employees also have obligations under the OHS Act 2000
to:
- co-operate with any requirement imposed by the employer in the
interests of health, safety and welfare (Section
20), and
not intentionally or recklessly interfere with
or misuse anything provided in the interests
of health,
safety
and welfare (Section
21). This can include the use, cleaning,
storage etc of PPE.
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