Review and assess Safety Management Systems regularly
Having a Safety Management System is essential, but you need to ensure it is current and fit-for-purpose over time.
A workplace assessment should be conducted and reviewed regularly to identify any hazards in the workplace, so that control measures can be implemented to eliminate, or minimize, potential risks.
Risk management can help you to respond to change and improve your business by preventing injuries and illness in the workplace, as well as improving the health and wellbeing of your workers and increasing productivity.
What is a Hazard?
A hazard is something in the workplace that can cause harm to people. Common types of workplace hazards include:
- mechanical hazards
- chemical and biological hazards
- sources of energy
- body stressing or impact hazards
- gravity
- psychological hazards.
How to Assess your workplace?
Use the following four steps to assess your workplace safety:
Step 1: Spot the hazards
Step 2: Assess risks
Step 3: Manage risks
Step 4: Monitor and review
What am I looking for when assessing my workplace?
A safety walk around the workplace can help to observe how people work and predict what could and might go wrong. To assist WorkSafe has a number of health and safety checklists.
A walk around can also reveal:
- how plant and equipment are used
- what chemicals are present and their intended use
- what safe and unsafe work practices exist
- any potential hazards and the general state of housekeeping.
Things to look out for can include:
- does the work environment enable workers to carry out work without risk to health and safety? (eg is there space for unobstructed movement, adequate ventilation and lighting)
- considering the physical, mental and emotional demands of the tasks and activities?
- how suitable are the tools and equipment for the task and how well are they maintained?
- how do workers, managers and others interact and how will inappropriate behaviour or conflict be dealt with?
- has any change occurred in the workplace which may affect health and safety?
Consult with your workers
Ask your workers about any health and safety problems they have encountered in doing their work and any near-misses or incidents that have been reported. Encourage them to tell you so as to improve safety rather than be reprimanded.
Working with employees can also obtain information on matters such as workplace bullying and physical ailments that can lead to potential hazards. To learn more, visit Consulting workers.
Regularly review and update information through keeping records of training, inspections, maintenance, health monitoring, workplace incidents, near-misses, worker complaints, sick leave which can all assist in identifying hazards.
You can also learn more on how to manage work health and safety risks.
There are also health and safety alerts with practical measures for preventing risk.