Managing Health & Safety

Transcription

1 Managing Health & Safety This section of the resource pack explains the principles behind OHS management. It explains what hazard and risk management means and then provides guidance on how to put hazard management into practice in the wool shed. An OHS Management System Health and safety is just one part of your business management and effective OHS management is essential to business success. The effectiveness of your health and safety management may be measured in terms of reduced injuries and illnesses and increased productivity and quality of the wool clip. The health and safety management aspect of business management is often dealt with through an OHS Management System. The elements of an OHS Management System are commonly: Management responsibility; Sub-contracting and purchasing; Consultation and communication; Risk management and process control; Training, learning and skills development; Records and records management; Corrective actions. This section of the package will help you assess which elements you already have and which may need improvement. 3-1

2 Management Responsibility This element is about defining your policies and procedures for OHS and injury management and your commitment to identifying responsibilities for OHS. To achieve this, you should develop an OHS policy and some goals. The OHS Policy should spell out your commitment to health and safety. It should state how health and safety management will be resourced and how performance will be regularly reviewed. If you have staff working for you, you should identify and assign health and safety responsibilities to all positions that can have an impact on health and safety performance. Sub-contracting and Purchasing This element is about ensuring that all materials, equipment, plant and services purchased or hired conform to specified OHS standards. It is achieved by assessing all materials, equipment, plant and services that are going to be bought or hired against specified OHS standards. You should insist that subcontractors to be hired show a compatible health and safety system operating in their business. You can use health and safety standards to select subcontractors and suppliers. 3-2

3 Consultation and Communication Involving your employees, sub-contractors and wool growers in your health and safety arrangements will help you achieve your OHS goals. This element is about demonstrating meaningful consultation and communication that results in positive injury prevention and injury management outcomes. Meaningful consultation and communication will also lead to good workplace relations. To achieve this you should establish an appropriate communication process to discuss workplace OHS and Injury Management issues with employees, sub-contractors and wool growers. You should collect and share information relevant to OHS management issues in general and relating to the particular shearing shed where work is being undertaken. You will need to identify and take into consideration information and training needs of your workforce for any given shearing shed. Risk Management and Process Control This element is about establishing and maintaining a system for identifying hazards and controlling risk, i.e. risk management. Particular attention should be paid to: Manual handling (including handling animals); Plant and equipment; Noise; Heat; Amenities, travel and accommodation; Hazardous substances/chemicals Areas/activities identified as high risk. 3-3

4 Further information about this element is provided in the next two sections of this resource. Training, Learning and Skills Development This element is about establishing procedures and allocating resources to identify and provide for the training needs of members of the shearing team and others who you employ. You should ensure that all members of the shearing team attend Start of Shed induction training. This will ensure that everyone is up to date with general as well as specific health and safety arrangements. Make sure you keep training records up to date. Records and Records Management This element is about establishing procedures for the identification, retention and retrieval of OHS and injury management records. To achieve this you should: Keep records in accordance with legislative obligations; Devise and implement a system of records management that includes details of the shed where work has been undertaken and the employees who undertook the work; Communicate record keeping arrangements to employees; Keep records of hazard identification, risk assessment and risk control activities. Keeping these records will provide evidence of legal compliance as well as benchmarks against which to assess performance. 3-4

5 Corrective Actions This element is about ensuring that OHS issues and problems are appropriately addressed and similar issues do not recur. To achieve this you should investigate incidents that have or may have resulted in injury or ill health (the latter are sometimes called near-misses ). A near miss should be treated as a warning sign. Investigating incidents helps you find out what went wrong, why it happened and, if a control measure was in place, why it failed. Having identified what went wrong, you can take steps to prevent a recurrence. Record the results of investigations. Finding out about incidents so that you can take the appropriate steps, requires the members of the shearing team to report all incidents, including near-misses. You should encourage reporting by making it a positive, rewarding process. 3-5