Hazardous Manual Tasks and Working From Home

Weekly WHS Article 27th July 2023

Do your workers ever have these injuries?

• “sprains and strains of muscles, ligaments and tendons,

• back injuries, including damage to the muscles, tendons, ligaments, spinal discs, nerves, joints and bones,

• joint and bone injuries or degeneration, including injuries to the shoulder, elbow, wrist, hip, knee, ankle, hands and feet,

• nerve injuries or compression, for example carpal tunnel syndrome,

• muscular and vascular disorders as a result of hand–arm vibration

• soft tissue injuries including hernias, and

• chronic pain.” Ref 1

These injuries are known as musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). “These are the most common workplace injuries across Australia.” Ref 1

With Working from Home becoming more popular in our modern work environment the risk of these occurring in workers who are working off site are still risks that need to be managed as if they were in the office, on site, or on the floor or showroom.

Why do these MSD injuries happen?

The Hazardous Manual Tasks Code of Practice tells us an MSD can occur in two ways:

• “gradual wear and tear to joints, ligaments, muscles and inter-vertebral discs caused by repeated or continuous use of the same body parts, including static body positions, or

• sudden damage caused by strenuous activity, or unexpected movements such as when loads being handled move or change position suddenly.

Injuries can also occur due to a combination of the above mechanisms.” Ref 1

Five risk factors that can make a manual task hazardous.

The gradual wear and tear or sudden damage to a worker’s musculoskeletal system comes about because one or more hazards are a part of the manual task that the worker performs. As explained in the Hazardous Manual Tasks Code of Practice:

“A hazardous manual task is a task requiring a person to lift, lower, push, pull, carry or otherwise move, hold or re- strain any person, animal or thing involving one or more of the following:

• repetitive or sustained force

• high or sudden force

• repetitive movement

• sustained or awkward posture, or

• exposure to vibration.

These hazards directly stress the body and can lead to an injury.”

Resolving hazardous manual tasks when working from home.

A PCBU must ensure that there are safe systems of work for its staff. This applies even if staff are working from home. Being that a PCBU is just a "name on paper" it is the Directors of the business who have to ensure these systems exist, are in place, and are in use all the time. Nobody wants their workers getting hurt at work, and that includes getting hurt in their home when doing work.

Business owners could put together a checklist for their staff who work at home that goes through hazard identification and minimization or elimination of potential risks. Once the checklist is done, the employee could sign off that they have been through the check and are aware that they must apply any measures or controls arising from identification of hazards and risks at their home while working from home.

Having a signed checklist like that can be used as evidence of the business (PCBU) having provided appropriate information, instruction, training, and supervision to staff who work from home. These provisions are in fact some of the Primary WHS Duty of a PCBU as stated in Section 19 of the WHS Act 2011.

References

Ref 1: see page 5 Hazardous Manual Tasks Code of Practice

Ref 2: see SafeWork NSW’s Hazardous Manual Task Training Fact Sheet https://www.safework.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/50078/Hazardous-manual-tasks-COP.pdf

Note The quotations in this article are from SafeWork NSW’s Hazardous Manual Tasks Code of Practice. Except for the NSW Government logo, this copyright work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 3.0 Australia License. To view a copy of this licence, visit www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/au

27th July 2023 - Updated 11 July 2024

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