Legal Requirements and Regulations for OHS/WHS Compliance
- John is running small cafés in city of Perth. However, he has been warned for being non-compliant with WHS/OHS legislative requirements. Can you help him identifying relevant WHS Acts, regulations and codes of practice, which may help him in being compliant?
John has been running small cafes in Perth city. He has been warned that he was not complying with the WHS/OHS legislative requirement. Therefore, the precise WHS Acts, codes of practice and regulations that would help John to stay complaint with the legislative requirements are as follows:
It is known that John has his cafes in Perth and therefore is under the legislative requirements within Western Australia. The OHS/WHS legislative requirements are:
WHS Act: Occupational Safety and Health Act 1984 (WA)
Regulations: Occupational Safety and Health Regulations 1996 (WA)
Codes: Western Australia Codes of Practice
Regulator: WorkSafe WA
By complying with these aspects, John would become compliant.
- You are Katie, a restaurant manager appointed in new fast food joint. You feel the need to create safety policies and procedures. But before that you need to identify hazards at your workplace. Explain what is risk identification and any three methods, whichcan be used for hazard identification.
The process of risk identification is the procedure of ascertaining the risks that could probably restrict the enterprise, program or investment from accomplishing their objectives. It is inclusive of communicating and documenting the issues that are under consideration.
The three types of methods that can be used for the purpose of hazard identification are:
Observation: This can be used with the help of sensing of sight, smell and hearing and touching with the help of combining their experience and knowledge.
Record Analysis: This is done by maintaining the records of the recognised hazards, nearly misses, injuries and the compensation of the workers with the help of claims in order to assist the identification of the probable trends.
Safety Audits: This is considered for establishing the safety committee in order to examine safety and assist in preparing a management plan.
- Research and Specify Organizational policies, procedures, programs and practices for WHSforyour own workplace? You may choose any other real workplace like McDonalds, Wilson Security, etc for your research.
The organizational procedures, practices and programs for WHS with respect to McDonalds are explained as follows:
Manage risks to safety and health and restricts incidents: by recognising and evaluating the workplace hazards and aiming to terminate or reducing the risks with respect to health and safety and in that manner prevent incidents.
Comply with the law: McDonalds looks to comply with all precise Australian Work Health and Safety legislation, standards and regulations. The company will function on the safety regulators within the country in order to accomplish the compliance and sustainably enhance the results.
Set targets and goals in order to improve: McDonalds will construct measurable targets and objectives for the safety and helath in order to assist and aim for sustainable enhancement as they work towards the mitigation of the work associated injury and illness in the workplace of McDonalds.
Up-Skill and engage employees at every level: The company will train their employees towards work safety, will engage their employees at every level, and will boost the top-down culture of safety in order to reinforce and demonstrate their commitment to the safety and health of their employees.
Consult and communicate safety: McDonalds concentrates on the fact to ensure that their process of consultation provides the employees with the opportunity to be added in the process of decision making which can have an impact on the safety and health at work.
- Outline the risk management process that can be used in a work area.
The various risk management processes that can be exploited in a work area are as given below:
- Identify the risk: It is essential identify, uncover and explain the risks that can have an impact on the operational outcome. Several mechanism can be used in order to discover the project risks. In this step, it is essential to construct a Project Risk Register.
- Analyse the risk: As the risks are discovered, it is essential to ascertain the consequences and the likelihood of every risk. It is essential to develop an understanding of the characteristics of the risk and its potentiality to have an impact on the goals and objectives of the project.
- Evaluate the risk: The assessment of the risk is undertaken by ascertaining the magnitude of the risk, which is a combination of the consequence and the likelihood. This will be helpful in taking decisions about the fact that whether the risk is acceptable or is complex enough to treat the warrant. These ranking of the risks are even included in the Project Risk Register.
- Treatment of the risk: This is even known as the Risk Response Planning. In this step, it is essential to evaluate the risks that has been of the highest rank and construct a plan in order to modify and treat the risks in order to accomplish the accepted level of risks.
- Monitor and Review the risk: This is the step where the Project Risk Register is used in order to supervise review and track the risks. The risk is about the uncertainty. If a framework is put around the uncertainty, then it is essential to de-risk the project. This helps in the development of confidence in order to reach their goals. The process of risk management aids in resolving the issues when they take place as these issues have been identified and measures are taken in order to eliminate the risks.
- Lynda recently started working in fuel station as Site supervisor and observes certain hazards like fuel spills, highly combustible substances. She is confused on how to control these risks. Can you explain hierarchy of risk control and how it can be applied to her workplace?
The hierarchy of risk control that can be applied in the workplace are as follows:
Elimination: The elimination of the hazard is the most efficient risk control.
Substitution: It is the second most efficient risk control and that is inclusive of replacing the things that produces hazards with the help of things that does not produce hazards.
Engineering controls: This is the third most effective controlling hazards is with the help of engineered control. These do not mitigate the hazards but in the other sense isolate the people from the hazards. The capital costs of controlled engineering look to be higher than the less effective controls in the hierarchy, but they may decrease the future costs.
Administrative controls: The administrative controls are the transformations to the process in which the individuals work. Instances of administrative controls are inclusive of the procedural changes, training of the employees, warning labels and installation of time. The administrative controls do not eliminate the hazards but prevents or restricts the exposure of the individuals to the hazards.
Personal Protective equipment: The personal protective equipment are inclusive of the special gadgets like the safety glasses, safety footwear, gloves, hard hats etc and is the least effective measure of controlling the hazards due to the increased potential damages that can happen to them.
- Write a short note on WHS legislative reporting requirements. Also analyse reporting requirements of any two real workplaces. You may choose your own workplace, or Big organisations like UWA, FMG, BP etc.
The WHS reporting requirement comprises of the framework of WHS Regulations that contains the requirement of record keeping that is applicable in all the states especially in Western Australia. The WHS record keeping requirement for the jurisdiction that is harmonised have been provided in the framework regulations to the Workplace Health and Safety Act and has been implemented into every jurisdiction’s own regulations. The Regulation covers the areas that have been given as follows:
- Supervising the contaminant level that is air-borne
- Spaces that have been confined
- Electrical installations and tools
- Plant
- Chemicals that are hazardous in nature
- Asbestos
- Lead
- Key hazard facilities