Management Commitment can Achieve Effective WHS Risk Management
Weekly WHS Article 13th April 2023
"Reasonably practicable"
Health and safety risks must be managed so that they are eliminated or minimised so far as is “reasonably practicable”. That is a duty of every business, organisation, or corporation in NSW - refer Section 17, WHS Act NSW.
The journey to avoiding serious incidents, a disaster, or minor injuries and harm in your workplace begins with the commitment and actions of management to ensure the health and safety of everyone in the workplace.
Management Commitment is Essential
The Code of Practice How to Manage Health & Safety Risks at page 7, provides sound advice on management commitment;
“Effective risk management starts with a commitment to health and safety from those who operate and manage the business or undertaking. You also need the involvement and cooperation of your workers, supply chain partners, and other businesses you work with. Management commitment is about demonstrating you are serious about health and safety and influencing other duty holders in the workplace.
To demonstrate your commitment, you should:
get involved in health and safety issues so that you understand the hazards and risk associated with your operations
consult workers and other duty holders on the hazards and risk, and how to control them
invest time and money in health and safety
ensure you and your workers clearly understand health and safety responsibilities and have the knowledge and skill to do tasks safely, and
apply health and safety values and behaviours to your own work practices.”
Accountability for Health & Safety
Directors and CEOs need to use and be able to rely on their Leadership team to carry out those actions that will help them demonstrate that they, as officers of the PCBU, are ensuring the obligations of the PCBU are being met.
For example, the Code of Practice, How to Manage Work Health & Safety Risks, has useful guidance at page 23 about PCBUs giving authority and resources to Managers and Supervisors.
“Accountability for health and safety –Managers and supervisors should be provided with the authority and resources to implement and maintain control measures effectively. Accountability should be clearly allocated to ensure procedures are followed and maintained.”
Effective Consultation with Workers is Essential
“Management commitment and open communication between managers and workers is important in achieving effective consultation. Your workers are more likely to engage in consultation when their knowledge and ideas are actively sought and concerns about health and safety are taken seriously.” (SafeWork NSW Code of Practice, Work Health & Safety Consultation, Co-operation and Co-ordination, page13)
Providing information, training, and supervision
The PCBU needs to provide education for all staff to be able to do their jobs safely. And they must be supervised in their work by competent and knowledgeable supervisors and managers. (Ref. Section 19 of the WHS Act 2011.)
Note:
The quotations from the, How to Manage Work Health & Safety Risks Code of Practice, and the Work Health & Safety Consultation, Co-operation and Co-ordination, Code of Practice, are the copyright work of SafeWork NSW and are used under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia Licence (CC BY 3.0). To view a copy of this licence, visit www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/au/
13th April 2023
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