In this topic, we discuss how to implement and monitor work team consultative arrangements for managing work health and safety (or occupational health and safety). As you develop your supervisory and management skills, this will become an essential aspect of many supervisors and managers. We will focus on how to:
- communicate the importance of consultation mechanisms in managing WHS risks to a work team
- apply consultation mechanisms to facilitate work team participation in managing work area hazards, according to organisational policies and procedures
- contribute to managing issues raised through consultation mechanisms, according to organisational consultation procedures and WHS legislative requirements
- communicate outcomes of consultation about WHS issues to work team.
Let us discuss each of these requirements.
Consultation is the collaborative process wherein executives, supervisors, and workers work together to discuss health and safety within an organisation.
Health and safety is an essential component of all organisations. To ensure the organisation operates efficiently and appropriately within the lines of the law, it is important that all team members are:
- aware of their role within the bounds of the legislation and organisational requirements
- aware of the relevant principles which apply to their role
- contribute to the processes and procedures to ensure these operate efficiently.
It is essential to think about how your organisation can promote participative management (effective collaboration) concerning health and safety. Collaboration and consultation apply specifically to the roles of health and safety practitioners, committees, and representatives. Each position is involved in bringing members of an organisation together to improve and maintain overall health and safety.
A vital principle of Workplace Health and Safety (WHS) legislation in Australia is consultation. It is a legal requirement and an essential part of managing health and safety risks. So what is consultation? Simply put, managing WHS issues requires consultation and the involvement of the wider team. Wherever a WHS issue is concerned, managers and supervisors should consult with the relevant workers and use their knowledge and experience to find solutions to WHS issues.
The following video provides an excellent overview of the requirements and importance of consultation regarding WHS matters in the workplace.
Code of Practice for work health and safety consultation, cooperation and coordination
The Work Health and Safety Consultation, Cooperation and Coordination Code of Practice lists several health and safety matters where a PCBU or 'person conducting a business or undertaking' (usually the employer) must consult with workers. These focus on identifying hazards and assessing risks, decision-making and proposing changes as you can see in the following list.
- Identifying hazards and assessing risks to health and safety arising from work carried out or to be carried out
- Making decisions about ways to eliminate or minimise those risks
- Making decisions about the adequacy of facilities for the welfare of workers
- Proposing changes that may affect the health or safety of your workers
- Making decisions about procedures for consulting with workers including:
- resolving health or safety issues at the workplace
- monitoring health of your workers
- monitoring the conditions at the workplace under your management or control
- providing information and training for your workers.
Further information about this model Code of Practice, including examples of consultation arrangements and an example of a consultation checklist, can be found here at Safe Work Australia.
Regular consultation allows you to keep employees informed of any issues and obtain detailed information from those who work in the areas daily. Employees are in the best position to advise as they are working in the area. They know what risks there are, what hazards are being faced, and what could be done to eliminate them. It is important to note that workers who are consulted involved are also more inclined to cooperate with new policies, procedures, and programs.
Scenario
Maddison Brown supervises fitness trainers at Bounce Fitness and is also the organisation's Work Health and Safety Officer. She has been concerned that not all staff are actively engaged in the consultation mechanisms. She has recently finished WHS consultation training and realises that as an organisation Bounce Fitness needs to improve their consultation with their staff. She thinks the first step is to communicate the importance of consultation mechanisms. She will start by creating a fun interactive quiz to highlight the importance of consultation. She will create a short 'trivial pursuit' type online activity based on WHS issues that have occurred at Bounce Fitness and how they were resolved. She will also include some high profile cases from the fitness industry. She knows that the more interactive and fun she can make WHS consultation the more likely it is that staff will participate in consultation mechanisms and collaborate with each other and the WHS committees to improve work health and safety.
Every member of the work team must do their part in managing work hazards, which can be facilitated through consultation. Consultation is a versatile tool and should be used by everyone in the workplace to help manage work hazards and reduce risk. Let us look at examples of consultation mechanisms and how collaboration can increase participation within work teams.
Consultation mechanisms and the work team
Consultation mechanisms vary between industries and according to the organisational policies and procedures. Consultation mechanisms include:
- ensuring early responses to worker’s suggestions, requests, reports, and concerns put forward to management
- participating in individual performance management processes
- holding formal and informal meetings
- liaising with Health and Safety Practitioners, Health and Safety Representatives, and Health and Safety Committees
- electing health and safety representatives according to legislative requirements
- attending as a health and safety representative at management and WHS planning meetings
- participating on other committees, for example, planning and purchasing
Requirements related to consultation as specified in Commonwealth and State or Territory WHS Acts, Regulations, and Codes of Practice.
As mentioned previously, workers are typically consulted during specific certain activities such as those in the following list.
- When identifying hazards and assessing risks arising from work carried out or to be carried out
- When making decisions about ways to eliminate or minimise those risks
- When making decisions about the adequacy of facilities for the welfare of workers
- When making decisions about procedures for consulting with workers, resolving health or safety issues and monitoring the health of your workers
- When proposing changes that may affect the health or safety of your workers.
Role of work team
Under the legislation, any worker whose health or safety may be affected by a hazard must be involved in the process of managing it. It is essential to ensure these processes also align with the policies and procedures of your organisation, as they may have a preferred consultation mechanism in place. Depending on the consultation mechanism, however, workers will have different roles to fulfil. The following table provides examples of consultation mechanisms and the role of the work team for each mechanism.
| Consultation mechanism | Role of work team |
|---|---|
| Meetings |
|
| Health and safety committees and representatives |
|
| Individual performance management processes |
|
| Reports |
|
Let us recap. Consultation mechanisms allow for:
- communicating regularly with workers to keep them informed of any WHS issues
- discussing WHS concerns that may affect health or safety, such as safety talks and resolving WHS issues
- sharing information, policies, and procedures
- ensuring staff performance is consistent with the organisation’s WHS policies
- providing feedback and reviews to the work team by management regarding health and safety
- addressing work health or safety issues.
Depending on your organisation’s policies and procedures, you must apply the appropriate consultation mechanisms in your workplace. Keep in mind the following questions.
- Will minutes be kept for all meetings or just formal ones?
- Who would be the best health and safety committee members?
- How will health and safety responsibilities be reflected during individual performance management processes?
- Are other committees necessary to facilitate safety? For example, will planning and purchasing ensure that all equipment purchased is safe and reliable?
- What requirements, specified in Commonwealth and State or Territory WHS/OHS/OSH Acts, Regulations, and Codes of Practice, must be considered in your organisation?
What are the three key consultation mechanisms?
Let us look at the three essential consultation roles: the Health and Safety Practitioners (HSP), the Health and Safety Representatives (HSR) and the Health and Safety Committee.
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Health and Safety Practitioners (HSP): The Health and Safety Practitioner is an individual within an organisation who will assist in managing internal health and safety matters. They must have a strong knowledge of WHS legislation, be thoroughly familiar with the Regulations, Codes of Practice, and requirements of an organisation concerning WHS. Typically, a practitioner will often have links with top management, allowing them to have any problems resolved quickly without the need to jump through organisational hoops.
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Health and Safety Representatives (HSR): As part of their legislative framework, some states and territories of Australia have requirements to establish a health and safety representative (HSR) role. This role is assigned to an individual elected by members of the workgroup they belong to, rather than appointed by management. The overall goal of the HSR is to represent the interests of their work team in health and safety matters.
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Health and Safety Committees (HSC): Like representatives, some states and territories in Australia have added to their legislation the requirement to establish health and safety committees (HSCs). A health and safety committee consists of workers and representatives that collaborate to identify and manage risks in the workplace. The broad goal of the HSC is to ensure that both persons conducting business or undertakings (PCBU)s and workers work together in developing and carrying out health and safety processes in the workplace. The committee should be kept as small as possible. At least half of the members are workers, and the rest are representatives of the person conducting the business or undertaking (PCBU), usually those in senior management levels who can approve of changes decided upon by the committee.
Select each heading to learn about the roles and responsibilities of these crucial roles.
The health and safety practitioner is responsible for a wide range of activities concerning health and safety in the workplace; becoming familiar with these roles will allow you to know when to approach them for assistance. The essential roles of the health and safety practitioner are:
- advising on WHS issues to management
- advising workers of safety issues
- supervising (or possibly conducting) health and safety training
- examining equipment and processes for safety issues
- investigating workplace incidents
- conducting audits of the safety system
- assisting with hazard identification
- preparing safety instructions and manuals
- organising safety practices (for fire and other emergencies).
An additional part of the safety practitioner's role, along with any WHS committee, is to inspect all health and safety policies and procedures and find ways of improving them.
The overall goal of the HSR is to represent the interests of their work team in health and safety matters. They typically achieve this through.
- consultation with senior management about health and safety issues in the workplace
- providing a point of contact with management, allowing management an individual with whom they can discuss any new plans or processes that they are going to implement
- being a point of contact for members of their workgroup, allowing them an individual to whom they can raise any health or safety issues that they feel are important rather than having to go straight to a supervisor
- assisting in the investigation of incidents
- assisting work teams with hazard identification
- accompanying inspectors as they make their rounds of a workplace.
You may find that the health and safety committee members require specialised training to undertake their job well. They will need a good understanding of hazard identification techniques, risk assessment, and overall responsibilities under the legislation.
The duties of a health and safety committee include:
- developing health and safety improvement plans in the workplace
- discussing and resolving health and safety issues
- promoting health and safety in the workplace
- assisting in incident investigation
- assisting in conducting inspections
- assisting in evaluating health and safety programs.
Scenario
Bounce Fitness has implemented bi-monthly WHS Committee meetings to ensure regular consultation and collaboration between stakeholders and workers regarding health and safety in the workplace. Their WHS Committee is composed of WHS experts, including the assistant manager and two personal trainers. They collate the WHS records from the past fortnight and discuss these in their meeting and use this information to assess the effectiveness and adequacy of their current risk controls. Information and decisions made at the Committee meeting are then shared with the team in a separate forum where all attendees work together to establish and implement the most appropriate and approved controls.
Managing work health and safety issues is a team effort. Everyone, including you, must contribute to responding to these problems. As a supervisor, you must ensure that relevant stakeholders are involved in managing WHS issues. You must follow your organisation’s procedure in managing the issues raised through consultation. If your organisation does not have a procedure for resolving issues, you can look to legislation for guidance. The Work Health and Safety Regulation includes provisions that describe the Issues Resolution Procedure.
The default procedure is as follows:
Note that all steps require consultation! This highlights how important effective consultation is to managing health and safety issues. The term 'parties' can refer to anyone in the workplace; therefore, your role is to contribute to managing issues rather than managing them on your own. The task described in each step is for both you and your work team. As a supervisor, you can oversee and drive the process, but ultimately, your team’s contributions are as important as your own.
Scenario
Last week a fitness instructor injured herself using a new piece of weight-lifting equipment that has recently been installed in each of the gym's locations. The incident occurred when the trainer was setting up the equipment for the first time and strained a leg muscle. The incident resulted in the team member being off work for two weeks. Management has asked Maddison to explain how this type of incident can be avoided in future. Maddison emails all the fitness instructors outlining the incident and seeking their feedback on the equipment. She wants to establish if other sites have had similar issues and any ideas the team may have to rectify the situation.
Maddison organises a Zoom meeting for all fitness instructors and is surprised by what she learns. It turns out that the equipment for every site arrived with no instructions. As a group, they decide that the manufacturer should be advised and that in the absence of a user guide they should provide training to each site and commit to developing a procedure within two weeks. The manufacturer is local and Maddison thinks will agree to their request. She promises the team that she will now instigate the default procedure for resolving the issue and consult with them again within one week.
The Code of Practice on how to manage health and safety risks states that the results of consultation must be provided to the workers involved. That is, consultation is a legislative requirement. Your work team must do their part in consulting about work health and safety, and you must do your part to inform them of the consultation results.
The Model WHS Act (and related state or territory WHS Acts) describes the nature of the consultation and requires that workers be advised of the outcome of their consultation promptly. Face-to-face and online meetings (including toolbox talks and team meetings) can inform your work team of what action was taken in response to the issues they raised through consultation. Remember to review your organisation’s procedures and policies to know what other methods you may apply. Select the following two communication methods for useful pointers on how to use them effectively.
- Ensure that the workers involved in the consultation are present for the meeting wherein the outcomes are discussed
- Discuss the essential details of the issue raised
- Describe to relevant persons any actions taken in response to the problem, how the issue was resolved, and who was involved in the resolution
- Assign someone to document what is discussed in the meeting.
Write and provide a detailed report to the workers involved, which contains:
- details of the issue raised
- who was consulted regarding the issue
- the action taken to resolve the issue
- the status of the issue, if solved or unsolved
- who was involved in resolving the issue.
Aside from being a legislative requirement, communicating the outcomes of consultation to your work team is vital because it demonstrates that consultation is taken seriously and that the organisation is committed to their health and safety. The point of consultation is to ensure that you (as a supervisor) hear their issues and concerns. Not only should their concerns be heard, but they should also be addressed. Communicating the outcomes lets your team know what became of their consultation. It shows them how their concerns are processed and responded to by the organisation. By sharing the results, you are also communicating that their health and safety are a priority.
Scenario
Maddison organises a follow-up Zoom meeting for all fitness instructors to communicate the outcomes of their previous consultation related to the absence lack of user guides for new equipment which resulted in a fitness trainer being off work for two weeks. She advises that the Bounce Fitness Issues Resolution Procedure was followed and produced a successful income with the manufacturer. The manufacturer has a detailed user guide which should have been provided. They acknowledged this is a flaw in their internal processes when boxing up the equipment that they need to rectify. As a result of the issues resolution procedure, a representative from the company will provide training at each site over the next two weeks and provide the user guide.
In the Zoom meeting, staff suggested to Maddison that this issue and the impact on their colleague could have been prevented if Bounce Fitness had a process for checking that all new equipment and machinery arrive with a user guide. Maddison agrees that this should be part of the Bounce Fitness Risk Management Policy and Procedure and a step in their checklist. One of the gym instructors has also offered to create a simple visual procedure to attach to each machine. From this scenario, you can see that consultation has had positive results for more than just Bounce Fitness staff and clients. The consultation process has also led to the manufacturer improving its internal processes for ensuring that user guides are provided with all equipment and machinery delivered to their customers.
Key points
- Consultative mechanisms in health and safety allow all workers to be involved in the process of health and safety. Not only is this required by legislation, but it also encourages many viewpoints and opinions.
- Your consultative mechanisms should be implemented and monitored to facilitate the participation of the work team in the management of work area hazards.
- Any issues raised through consultation must be promptly dealt with following organisational consultation procedures.
- An issues resolution procedure is the step-by-step process that describes how an organisation can manage issues raised through consultation mechanisms.
- The outcomes of consultation regarding WHS issues must be recorded and communicated promptly to the work team.
The final activity for this topic is a set of questions that will help you prepare for your formal assessment.
