Workplace Safety Archives - Workplace Health & Safety | Occupational Hygiene | WHS | OH&S

WHS Training

dinesh — Mon, 30 May 2022 02:19:06 +0000

WHS Training & Education

The importance of keeping OHS Training up-to-date

Complying with and managing OHS is often seen as an increasing burden, one that takes up precious time and money. It’s essential for all businesses to remove this task from the ‘too-hard basket’ and make it a priority.

The importance of keeping OHS Training up-to-date

Lets talk

Complete the form below to request a call back from our team

Now’s not a good time to chat? No worries. Provide some details about your enquiry and one of our experienced team will reach out at a time that suits you.

“All organisations have regulatory responsibilities which they must meet around the safety of their workers and contractors. This extends from Safety Governance at the highest level in the organisation, through WHS Committee representation of all the work groups in the business, to any person in the business responsible for a Business Undertaking (a PCBU).

….and there are so many facets to the legislation…”who is a PCBU here in my organisation, for example…am I?”

AusSafety's approach is not a 'cookie cutter' approach

For over 20 years, we have worked with employers nationally to understand each organisation’s specific industry and cirumstances, along with the evolving and varied State legislation, to tailor training for the key people in each client’s specific business or organisation. AusSafety’s approach is not a ‘cookie cutter’ approach because no two organisations are exactly the same. Neither is our approach simply one of compliance. Yes, legal protections are achieved with the training and safety systems development work we will do with your organisation. Additionally and importantly, however, we will assist your organisation to ingrain a safety culture into the whole organisation.

A safety culture lived daily across the organisation is extremely important in workers behaving safely at work, in their identifying potential risks, in their challenging the adequacy of current risk mitigation strategies, and in looking after each other. Having a strong safety culture is something Employers of Choice have developed, and your organisation’s external brand is also enhanced. But how to make this happen?

Get in touch

We Service Australia Wide

Building a strong safety culture

Even sending the WHS Committee away to do a short course, or make them battle unassisted through some online learning, can be a time consuming and not necessarily the most effective way to achieve a ‘step change’. Our very mission at AusSafety is to help your people get home safety to their loved ones – what price that? Call us today for a confidential discussion about meeting your organisation’s specific needs via a really focussed and effective training and cultural development program on 1300 766 139

Why AusSafety Training?

We have over 20 years’ experience providing high-quality and practical training across a number of areas within the WHS field. Many of our courses centre around introductory awareness training, however our Screening Audiometry Training ensures the participant meets the requirements of AS1269.4:2014 to competently undertake screening audiometry within the workplace.

WE CAN HELP YOU

AusSafety builds relationships with our clients to best understand the needs & requirements of workers onsite. We have the experience & qualifications to help you today.

Related Services

The post WHS Training appeared first on Workplace Health & Safety | Occupational Hygiene | WHS | OH&S.

WHS Consulting

dinesh — Mon, 30 May 2022 02:18:22 +0000

WHS Consulting Services

AusSafety offers Health and Safety Advisor services to companies Australia-wide.

Increasingly, we’re finding that even large companies often have the requirement to call on extra Health & Safety capability from outside their permanent pool of staff to meet the safety obligations inherent in large projects or shutdown works, or to augment the existing safety capability in-house.

AusSafety offers Health and Safety Advisor services to companies Australia-wide.

Lets talk

Complete the form below to request a call back from our team

Now’s not a good time to chat? No worries. Provide some details about your enquiry and one of our experienced team will reach out at a time that suits you.

Are you a business that doesn’t have the resources for a dedicated health and safety advisor? Do you as the director, wear this hat too, as well as all the others? Or are you a larger business with a well-established health and safety department that needs a little outside help from time to time?

Organisations need to ensure they are giving due consideration to discharging their duties under the Workplace Health and Safety legislation. This includes ensuring that the PCBU is eliminating or minimising risks to health and safety as far as is reasonably practicable, with the resources available.

Focused driven approach

AusSafety Services can fill any gap your business may need with our WHS consultation services. Whether its total WHS management system development, through to SDS reviews or SWMS development, we can tailor any consultation to suit your needs.

We can provide a full safety service that is compliant to AS4801 or ISO45001 and can offer gap analysis and assistance in achieving accreditation for either standard.

Comprehensive Consultation

Comprehensive consultation includes handing over the development of the WHS management system to us. We set it up and train you how to run the system. We can then check back in at set intervals to run safety meetings, toolbox talks, and regular audits to ensure the system is working as it should and you’re complying with your legal obligations. We can also help coach and teach one of more of your existing employees the knowledge to maintain the system over the longer term.

This service may include:

A Comprehensive AS4801 or ISO45001 WHS Management System specific to your business that will help you gain third party accreditation;
Creation of all policies, procedures and checklists/forms;
Development of Safe Work Procedures for high-risk tasks & Safe Work Method Statements/JSA’s;
Hazardous Chemical register Chemical Risk Assessments (if applicable);
Hazard identification and register compilation;
Risk assessments on identified hazards completed;
Incident management procedure and process;
New start induction and training to all new and existing workers; and
Regular safety meetings and toolbox talks.

Get in touch

We Service Australia Wide

Part-time consultation

This includes some of the hands-on services listed in the Comprehensive setup, except that you already have your WHS management system setup and in place. You’re just having a hard time administering it and running it day to day. Depending on the size of your organisation, you may have a varied number of inputs into the record keeping part of the system. We can tailor a short-term consultation placement that suits the input and administration required, whether that’s 1 day a week, 1 day a month, a week every 3 months or an audit as an internal auditor to help keep you on track for your external third-party accreditation audits.

These types of placements can occur as a result of a number of factors including new major projects, serious incidents, resignation illnesses or extended leave of key staff.

Third-party review capabilities

A key area in WHS Management System is ensuring you have experience and knowledgeable people reviewing company documentation to ensure it meets legislative requirements and Australian or International Standards. We have consultants with years of experience in all areas of workplace health and safety and occupational hygiene who can provide a robust team resource under our WHS consultation process, available to review and advise on any strategic documents associated with your WHS Management System.

Your Next Steps

The most important actions a business can take are the first step to decide to take action, and the step of following up that action. Taking the first step to undertake an audit of your business to improve processes is great, but what matters most is the continued follow up action to continually improve the business’ health and safety performance.

Nobody likes non-compliances, but not knowing about them and burying your head in the sand is worse, especially when the business can be held legally liable for any potential failing

WE CAN HELP YOU

AusSafety builds relationships with our clients to best understand the needs & requirements of workers onsite. We have the experience & qualifications to help you today.

Related Services

The post WHS Consulting appeared first on Workplace Health & Safety | Occupational Hygiene | WHS | OH&S.

WHS System Audit

dinesh — Sun, 01 May 2022 06:17:28 +0000

WHS Management System Audit

Work Health And Safety Management System Is A Systems-Based Approach In Minimizing Injury And Health Issues Associated With Jobs And Services In The Organization.

When it comes to checking a workplace’s WHS performance, audits are one of the key tools we have to achieve this. WHS management system audits can be undertaken by internal employees or by an external provider. There are benefits to either. In-house audits can be less expensive, be undertaken at times that may be more suitable for the business and focus on areas that are key. External third-party audits may be more rigorous and stand up ethically and morally since they adhere to auditing guidelines, but also have the advantage of having a fresh set of eyes and perspective looking at the business.

Work Health And Safety Management System Is A Systems-Based Approach In Minimizing Injury And Health Issues Associated With Jobs And Services In The Organization.

Lets talk

Complete the form below to request a call back from our team

Now’s not a good time to chat? No worries. Provide some details about your enquiry and one of our experienced team will reach out at a time that suits you.

Why is a Health and Safety Audit Important?

Health and safety audits are important for assessing the performance of the business relative to the goals that have been set out in the business’ safety management system. Along the way, gaps may also be identified. If done correct, an action plan can be created at the end which can help the business take steps to improve your safety in the workplace.

They can also help:

Help identify whether the health and safety management system meet the standard it is based upon, and thus complying with the relevant legislation;
Assess whether the objectives set out in the health and safety policy are being achieved;
Track whether the relevant performance criteria as set out in safety plan are being met;
Monitor whether the results of previous audits are being implemented within the organisation; and
Keep the business on the path toward continual improvement.

Get in touch

We Service Australia Wide

What Types of Safety Audits are There?

Audits can focus on as wide area as the entire WHS Management System, or as narrow a focus as a particular task. However, generally speaking the most common would include:

Entire WHS Management system audits (horizontal audit); and
Audits of one aspect of the management system, e.g., chemical management, or incident management (vertical audit).

WHS Management System Audits

An audit of the WHS management system would be termed a “horizontal” audit. A horizontal audit is when you audit one system and how it works and is integrated across the entire business. This will be from high level policies and procedures all the way through to forms and take 5 risk assessments that are in place to manage health and safety on site.

WHS Management system audits may be assessed against the following standards:

AS/NZS 4801 – Occupational Health and Safety Management System
ISO 45001 – Occupational Health and Safety
OHSAS 18001 – Occupational Health and Safety Management System

It should be noted that ISO45001 is now the becoming the preferred standard over AS/NZS 4801 for many businesses, especially those that operate globally

Single aspect audits

Audits that look at a single aspect of the entire WHS management system would be termed “vertical” audits. A vertical WHS management system audit is when you audit all the parts of the system that centre around one aspect, e.g., chemical management. This would include policies and procedures from a high level, down to the use of chemicals within the workplace.

Single aspect audits may include areas such as:

Electrical safety;
Emergency procedures;
Dust management;
Noise management;
Manual handling;
Traffic management; and
Employee assistance program.

There are six simple steps that need to be taken when undertaking an audit. They include:

Identify Areas to Audit and Set the Criteria/Tool
Decide How Often to Audit
Conduct the Audit
Document the Results
Report the Findings
Create an Audit Action Plan

Moving Forward

The action plan becomes the key part of the outcome of the audit process. The action a plan will be formulated based on the findings. Common findings for individual audit items included

Non-compliance – these may be broken down into major and minor non-compliance. These typically require urgent action and should be attended to with a matter or urgency.

Observation – these may include things that may lead to a non-compliance however they haven’t done so as yet. It could also be the subjective opinion of the auditor. The business can choose whether they want to make any changes to address these or not, i.e., typically not compulsory to meet their obligations.

Opportunity for Improvement – these may include things that are being done, however they could be done another way that would result in a better outcome.

Next Steps For You

Nobody likes non-compliances, but not knowing about them and burying your head in the sand is worse, especially when the business can be held legally liable for any potential failing.

WE CAN HELP YOU

AusSafety builds relationships with our clients to best understand the needs & requirements of workers onsite. We have the experience & qualifications to help you today.

Related Services

The post WHS System Audit appeared first on Workplace Health & Safety | Occupational Hygiene | WHS | OH&S.