Workplace Health And Safety (WHS) Assessment Task

Elements of WHS Management Systems

Identify and describe the three main elements to consider when providing induction training to new workers in an organization.

• What the new employees need to know to effectively perform their roles within the organization
• Both support and insights needed by the new employees to fit comfortably in the organization culture
• What the new employees are required to achieve in a stipulated times

Who are the WHS duty holders in any organization?

They are the people who owe responsibilities under WHS as per the WHS act including the people conducting business, designers, manufacturers, importers, and suppliers, installers of plants used at the work, officers and other workers.

Communication and consultation strategies should be put in place so that all workers understand their responsibilities and the necessity of implementing an effective WHS management system. What might these strategies include?

• Keeping the communication real
• Ensuring that communication is timely
• Focusing on consistency
• Tailoring the message to be communicated
• Reinforcing communication
• Encouraging a culture of feedback and
• Empowering organization managers

Some of the WHS human resources that may be required in an organization will include who?

• Health and safety committee (HSC)
• Health and safety representative (HSR)
• Officer

How does consultation and participation benefit a company?

• Facilitate information sharing relating to workplace health and safety
• Conveying and getting concerns
• Obtaining the views of other employees into consideration

What might be included in determining the appropriate action for identified issues?

• Raising the issue with supervisors
• Supervisor consults with the workers and implements a plan to resolve the issue
• Assistance sought from HRS
• WHS grievance resolution process
• WHS unit contacts

When must employers consult with their workers?

• In the process of identification and assessment of risks arising from work „
• In the process of decision making which regards eliminating and minimizing risks
• Before proposing changes that affect health and safety of workers
• Before making decisions on consultation procedures and resolving safety issues

Please provide at least 5 examples of dangerous occurrences?

• Unintentional ignitions
• Fire involving any substance
• Accidental release or escape of harmful substances
• Collapse of a building
• Overturning, explosion, short circuiting or bursting of work equipment

Changes in the workplace can create new hazards. Identify three types of changes that might affect the safety of workers? 

• Change in processes
• Change in products
• Change in regulations

What are the five categories of control measures for identified risks?

• Assessing the likelihood of risk associated with hazards causing injury
• Investigating the degree of harm expected to result in case of risk
• Asking the relevant worker’s opinions on how to reduce the risk
• Evaluating availability and suitability ways of eliminating and reducing the risks
• Balancing the four factors with the cost of reducing and eliminating hazards

If you identify an inadequacy in risk control measures what should you do?

• Trying lesser risky option.
• Preventing access to hazards.
• Organizing the work to reduce hazard exposure.
• Issuing protective equipments.
• Providing welfare facilities like first-aids.
• Involving and consulting with workers.

What does ongoing improvement involve?

Continuous improvement is a method used to identify opportunities for reducing waste and streamlining work. It was formalized by Lean / Agile / Kaizen in business. It is achieved through periodic examination and improvement of processes to smash bottlenecks and take advantage of efficient methods.

ASSESMENT TASK 2

List the forms, registers and records that your organization uses to collect information on WHS incidents, injuries and near misses

• Near miss, incident and hazard report form
• Register of injuries report form
• Accident compensation claim form
• Incident notification form

Analyzing the above forms helps WHS team implement the necessary control measures in anticipation for similar incidences in future. 

What types of work are performed by your organization and within your department or work area?

• Commercial cleaning
• Air conditioner installation
• Fire extinguisher installation
• Installation of lightning arrestors

What methods could you use to explain WHS legislative and regulatory requirements to your work group?

• Risk registers
• Mails
• Presentations
• Posters
• Informal discussions
• Intranet sites

What types of issues have you discussed in WHS meetings?

• Health and safety issues
• Follow-up actions

What types of follow-up action have been required from those meetings?

• Employers were required to keep equipments in suitable conditions
• Equipment selection to be done with consideration to working conditions
• Work equipments to be assessed before being used to avoid risk on users
• Equipments involving certain risks to be restricted to qualified employees only
• Repairs/modifications on work equipments to be done by qualified employees only;
• Before being exposed to machine operations, employees must be trained thoroughly.

How would you conduct a training needs analysis in your organization?

Step 1: Determining the Desired Business Outcomes

Needs analysis will be involved in this step to articulate the training goals.

Step 2: Linking the desired Business Outcome with the Employee Behavior

Employers will be allowed to identify desired critical competencies of the employees and rated through a rating scale as shown below. The guiding question will be; How Important Is This for Successful Job Performance?

1 = Not at all

2 = A little

3 = Somewhat

4 = Considerable

5 = Extremely

Step 3: Identification of Trainable Competencies

Because not every competency requires training to be improved, the list to be focused on will be produced at this step.

Step 4: Evaluation of Competencies

Employers will determine the competencies of the employers through competency evaluation and test assessments.

Step 5: Determining Performance Gap

Individual employees will be combined to be assessed on the basis of improvement needs.

Step 6: Prioritizing Training Needs

Identifying Duty Holders and Responsibilities

Data in step 5 will be aggregated in order to realize the areas which need much attention.

Step 7: Determining How to Train

Making use of training priority set above, consideration on the best training in the workforce will be sought like, On the job training; web-based; classroom; conferences etc.

Step 8: Conducting Cost Benefit Analysis

Consideration on the costs linked with the training method s and the extent to which performance gaps could be compressed will be done I this step. such factors will include: Required training time; Training content delivery and Travel and logistical expenses.

Step 9: Planning for Training Evaluation

Employers will decide on how the training will be done. Some of the questions to be evaluated in this process are: How much did the training improve employees’ actual job performance? How much did the training improve the meeting of business objectives? How much did the training result in a positive return on its investment? Etc.

What types of WHS training may be required for workers in your organization such as first-aid training, operating particular types of machinery, getting a forklift drivers license or coaching and mentoring?

• Giving First-aid
• Safety measures when operating risky machines
• Responding to emergencies

The possible outcomes in your organization if risk controls are inadequate, why might your organization’s risk control strategies be inadequate

The organization may run bankrupt as a result of the heavy costs realized after risk strikes the organization. Risk controls can be inadequate if the managers lack enough knowledge on workers’ performance and training. Examples of potential work hazards in workplace include.

• Electricity short-circuiting
• Slips, trips and falls at the workplace
• Fire

What methods are used in your workplace to identify hazards? Provide three examples.

• Conducting safety and audit inspections in the workplace
• Carrying out job safety analyses
• Carrying outpre-start discussions on work to be done

 Complete the Work Health and Safety Management Plan for your organization

Project information

• Management and review

This WHS Management Plan has been developed to outline the approach to be used in managing work health and safety (WHS) at the .

This plan will:

• Be availed to all the workers and contractors in this site for them to have the opportunity of reading, understanding, clarifying and asking questions
• Kept in a copy readily available for the entire period of the project
• reviewed regularly throughout the course of this project and revised version will be availed to all those working on the project regularly
  • Principal contractor details

Business name:	EVANS&SONS CONTRACTORS
Address:	81-90200
Contact person:	EVANS
Work phone:	+444 792390086
Mobile phone:	+444 792390086
Fax:	3456
Email:	[email protected]
ABN:	45
Contract licence number:	2345678
Principal contractor signature:	Evansk.

• Details of persons at workplace with WHS responsibilities

Name	Position	WHS responsibilities
Evans	Principal contractor	· Preparing and implementing WHS · Ensuring all works are done in a risk free manner · Dispute resolution · Investigating hazard reports
Rose	Contractor	· Fulfilling PCBU duties · Complying with WHS plan · Identifying high risk construction works · Following safety policies and site rules
Martin	Contractor	· Fulfilling PCBU duties · Complying with WHS plan · Identifying high risk construction works · Following safety policies and site rules
Kelvin	Worker	· Taking care of own health and safety · Complying with site policies and procedures · Taking care of their conduct not to affect others.
Donald	Worker	· Taking care of own health and safety · Complying with site policies and procedures · Taking care of their conduct not to affect others.

• Other contact details

Client name	Address	Contact number	Position	WHS responsibilities
GENIUS	98-90200	+41 456789	CONTRACTOR	· Fulfilling PCBU duties · Complying with WHS plan · Identifying high risk construction works · Following safety policies and site rules
Other relevant contacts	Address	Contact number

• Scope of work

Description of project:	Flats construction (The project involves the construction of four residential flats in Sydney )
Location of project:	Sydney
Start and finish dates:	December 2018-August 2019

2.3 WHS policy 

Providing safe and healthy environment

The company will provide safe and healthy environment to its workers, customers and visitors in the course of their stay within the company premises. The company will commit itself to ensuring all the operations are carried out in a way that ensures health and safety of all people. The company will not offer services that may cause harm or accidents to people involved or around. Any member within the company is expected to be responsible of his or her actions in regard to health and will be held accountable of his or her actions.

Safety program on staff, property& public

The company will commit itself on strong safety program that protects its staff, property and the public against accidents. Company employees at any level will be held responsible and accountable for the company’s overall safety initiatives. Management will therefore support this program by providing proper equipment, training and procedures. Workers are therefore responsible in following work safety procedures and improving safety measures.

Safety of the employees

The company will commit itself to protect its employees from injuries and occupational diseases. This will be achieved through the efforts to provide healthy and safe working environment. All the supervisors and workers will be required to dedicate themselves to continued risk reduction within the company premises. Supervisors will be held responsible for health and safety of the workers under their supervision.

ASSESSMENT TASK 3

You are the site manager and you have just met with your senior manager about concerns that workers have regarding WHS in the site. Your work area has reported a number of near misses in the past three months and there have also been five lost time incidents in the past six months. The safety performance of your work area is declining steadily and you must urgently address this issue.

Suggest three actions you would take immediately to start addressing declining WHS performance in your area. Explain why these actions are appropriate and how they could improve WHS performance on the site.

Getting the opinion of workers about the issue at hand and then ask them to propose some basic solutions they can think of; this is done to ensure the solution realized favors the employees and therefore will be much willing to implement it rather than mandating a solution for them.

After agreeing on the solution, monitor the employee’s behavior over some time. In other words, following up on them to ensure that the solution adequately addresses the problem

Lastly, the proposed solution is reinforced by correcting the employees on areas where they seem to deviate from the proposed solution.

Identify any areas where you may require assistance from WHS experts or specialist resources. Why would you require this assistance and how could it help to improve WHS performance?

• Legal matters related to WHS and training programs on WHS performance because some of these areas require more attention from the top management and handling them individually can be dangerous.

Identify a range of workplace actions that could be implemented to enhance individual and team understanding of WHS responsibilities.

• Preparing action plans
• Implementing the plans
• Monitoring and reviewing the actions
• Identifying improvements where necessary

Identify at least one improvement you could make on the current WHS procedure.

• Establishing  First Aid procedures
• Improving risk reporting system- to ensure employees report accidents directly

Identify two methods you could use to assess the level of compliance with WHS legislative requirements and organizational policy and procedures in your work area. Why is this important element of WHS performance?

• How the WHS legislations, regulations and codes of practice are embedded within the organization policies and procedures. It is important because it will ensure organization policies and procedures are applied effectively and comply with legislatives
• Structured reviews enable the organization to fulfil internal and external reporting requirements

References

1. Bluff, Leonard. “Managing work health and safety risks under the national model of WHS legislation.” Regulation at Work10 (2011): 17-21.
2. Bahn, Susanne. “Workplace hazard identification and management: The case of an underground mining operation.” Safety science57 (2013): 129-137.
3. Fung and Seneviratne. “Regulatory verification on safe use of cytotoxic drugs in veterinary clinics and animal hospitals.” Australian veterinary journal11 (2016): 400-404.
4. Schofield, Toni, Belinda Reeve, and Ron McCallum. “Australian workplace health and safety regulatory approaches to prosecution: Hegemonising compliance.” Journal of Industrial Relations5 (2014): 709-729.