Provide Information to Work Team about WHS/OHS Policies and Procedures

All workplaces have legislation, regulations, codes of practice and standards that apply to their industry. When considering essential matters such as WHS/OHS legalities, there is a lot to keep in mind and be aware of, including:

• Work, health and safety legislation (that is, the WHS Acts in NT, NSW, SA, QLD, TAS)
• Occupational health and safety legislation (that is, the OHS Act in VIC)
• Occupational safety and health legislation (that is, the OSH Act in WA)
• Regulations related to work health and safety acts
• Codes of practice pertaining to regulations
• Standards related to the above setting out specifications, procedures, and guidelines.

These are then reflected in an organisation's policies and procedures. Employees with responsibilities to implement and monitor their organisation’s work health and safety policies, procedures and programs are also responsible for identifying the provisions that apply to their workplace. Workplaces will have at least one person who has the knowledge and expertise to identify the relevant provisions for their work teams. This is often the WHS Officer. 

The WHS Officer or line manager must identify, compile, and inform their team of relevant work health and safety provisions. Before they can tell their team anything, they should know what provisions to communicate.

What are provisions?

There are two ways to understand the term provision.

Legislative perspective

The Acts Interpretation Act 1954 in schedule 1, gives the meaning of commonly used words in the Act. It provides the meaning of provision as: Provision, in relation to an Act, means words or other matter that form or forms part of the Act, and includes:

• a chapter, part, division, subdivision, section, subsection, paragraph, subparagraph, sub-subparagraph, of the Act apart from a schedule or appendix of the Act
• a schedule or appendix of the Act or a section, subsection, paragraph, subparagraph, sub-subparagraph, item, column, table or form of or in a schedule or appendix of the Act; and (c) the long title and any preamble to the Act.

Workplace perspective

From an applied perspective the term ‘provisions’ refers to the requirements contained within work health and safety legislation.  In this topic, we refer to provisions as objects. These ‘objects’ within the Model WHS Act 2011 (and expressed throughout the relevant state and territory WHS Acts) aim to provide for a balanced and nationally consistent framework to secure the health and safety of workers and workplaces. It does this by:

• protecting workers and other persons from harm by requiring duty holders to eliminate or minimise risk
• providing for fair and effective representation, consultation, and cooperation
• encouraging unions and employer organisations to take a constructive role in promoting improvements in WHS practices
• promoting the provision of advice, information, education, and training for WHS
• securing compliance with the Act through effective and appropriate compliance and enforcement measures
• ensuring appropriate scrutiny and review of actions taken by persons with powers or functions under the Act
• providing a framework for continuous improvement
• maintaining and strengthening national harmonisation of WHS laws and facilitating a consistent national approach to WHS.

Typical workplace procedures which apply to these provisions include (but not limited to):

• WHS committees meetings
• WHS programs including safe work procedures and training
• WHS policy and procedures
• Incident investigation procedure
• Aggregating data
• Reporting notifiable incidents
• Risk assessment templates
• Risk management procedures
• Hazard reporting procedures.

Bounce Fitness has developed a comprehensive set of policies and procedures to ensure safety for its employees, clients and other visitors to their gym facilities.

These procedures are effective ways to communicate relevant provisions about WHS/OHS laws to your work team. Let us now take a look at the rules and regulations which encompass and define these provisions.

Work health and safety legislation

Legislation can be defined as a law or a set of laws passed by a government body.¹

In Australia, a set of health and safety laws aim to give all workers the same fundamental rights at work throughout Australia. These are known as ‘model’ WHS laws and were developed by Safe Work Australia in 2011. However; Safe Work Australia does not regulate or enforce WHS laws or the recently introduced COVID-19 restrictions on business operations.² Having a national approach to legislation ensures that all workers have the same standard of health and safety protections, and businesses have greater certainty – primarily when operating across state borders, and over time, reduced compliance costs for businesses.³

The model WHS laws include the:

• Model Work Health and Safety Act 2011: The Model Work Health and Safety Act 2011 is the basis of the WHS laws which all states and territories, other than Western Australia and Victoria, have implemented.
• Model Work Health and Safety Regulations
• Model Codes of Practice
• Standards.

For the model WHS laws to become legally binding, the Commonwealth, states, and territories must separately implement them as their laws.⁴The Model WHS laws have been implemented in the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, the Northern Territory, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, and the Commonwealth. Some jurisdictions have made minor variations to ensure the legislation is consistent with their relevant drafting protocols and other laws and processes. For the most part, you will find that the significant differences between states and territories lie in terminology and each Act's processes.

Before 2012, each state and territory had its occupational health and safety (OHS) or occupational health and safety (OSH) laws that differed from state to state or territory. OHS is still used in Victoria and OSH in Western Australia, and these are currently their primary workplace health and safety laws.

We will now focus on the general themes present in all states and territories’ legislation and, when required, will refer to the Model Work Health and Safety Act 2011.

Legal obligations

One of the critical aspects of all health and safety legislation across Australia is that it places legal obligations on many individuals, including:

• persons conducting a business or undertaking (PCBUs)
• Officers (An ‘officer’ under work health and safety laws is generally a middle manager or supervisor)
• managers
• supervisors
• team leaders
• workers
• apprentices and trainees
• volunteers
• work experience students
• customers
• clients
• contractors
• visitors.

These obligations ensure that every workplace is kept safe, and all levels of the organisation work towards building a safer and ultimately more effective workplace. We will cover the legal responsibilities in more detail later in this topic. If an injury is caused to an employee because their organisation did not comply with their legal obligations, then the organisation can be issued a penalty.

WHS is an important issue at Bounce Fitness and all staff are provided extensive information at orientation and throughout the year. The following example from the Australian Fitness Industry Risk Management Manual is provided to all staff at induction to reinforce the importance of working safely. 

Gale v New South Wales: ‘Gale was employed part-time to supervise a prison gymnasium. A weight machine became stuck, and Gale injured herself, attempting to free the weights. Gale sued her employer, alleging that the machine was not well maintained and that the defendant should have foreseen that the appellant would attempt to fix it if the machine broke down. The Court of Appeal agreed that the risk of such an accident was foreseeable and awarded compensation.’⁵

Why is it that health and safety are so important in the modern workplace? There are, of course, legal and ethical considerations that must be considered. Still, it is also important to realise that incidents significantly affect the bottom line in any organisation. The costs associated with an incident include:

• increases to medical compensation insurance and workers’ compensation levies
• time spent on incident investigations
• time lost due to injury and illness
• cost of replacing injured workers, training replacements, and rehabilitation
• production costs resulting from delays in the return to normal operations
• damage to property, materials, and equipment and repairs
• fines.

What is an injury, and what is an illness?

• Injury: An injury is damage, hurt, loss or a wound and can be a physical or emotional injury. Examples of injuries include abrasions, broken bones, and muscle strains. An injury can be acute (a sudden and often overwhelming injury resulting from physical activity) or chronic (an injury resulting from prolonged, repetitive motion)
• Illness: An illness is a disease, disorder or sickness affecting the body or mind. Examples include skin disease, poisoning or depression. An illness can be chronic (generally a condition that lasts for more than a year requiring ongoing medical attention and/or daily living activities are limited) or acute (a condition that is severe and sudden in onset).

Consider the following serious claims statistics, in Australia, between 2018 – 2019.⁶

• Total serious claims: 114,435
• Median compensation per serious claim: $11,700
• Median time lost by weeks: 6.0
• The frequency rate of serious claims per million hours worked: 5.7

Serious claims relate to where the compensated injury or disease resulted in one week or more off work. As you can see, the costs to an organisation can be high.

If you are interested in learning more about crucial WHS statistics for Australia between 2018 – 2019, Safe Work Australia has produced an excellent document.

Structure of the legislative framework

Before moving to the specifics of the legislation, we will look at the overall structure of the legislative framework. The following image illustrates the hierarchy of the different elements which constitute legislation.

1. Acts sit at the top at the pinnacle, setting the general principles and philosophy and are legally binding. Moving down the hierarchy, we find more details and practical advice is provided.
2. Regulations expand on particular issues from the Acts and are legally binding.
3. Codes of Practice provide helpful guidelines for putting regulations into effect and are generally non-mandatory.
4. Standards set out specifications, procedures, and guidelines and are usually non-mandatory documents.

Please note, the Standards are not a part of the structure of the legislation; however, they are included in the pyramid because they consist of procedures and essential guidelines to support organisations. Let us look at each of these now in more detail.

Work Health and Safety Acts

These Acts are legally binding and set the broad principles and philosophy for protecting all people in an organisation, including volunteers, apprentices, trainees, work experience students, customers, clients, contractors, and visitors to a workplace. Acts have a consultative, proactive approach to managing health and safety in the workplace.

As previously mentioned, there is not just one piece of legislation covering health and safety in Australia. Instead, each State and Territory has its piece of law covering the subject in the form of its own Work Health and Safety (WHS) Act, based on the Model Work Health and Safety Act 2011. However, currently:

• Western Australia still follows its Occupational Safety and Health Act 1984 (OSH Act 1984)
• Victoria still follows its Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (OHS Act 2004)

The Acts of each State and Territory are as follows:

Note: The Work Health and Safety Act 2020 (WA) will commence in 2021 once their WHS regulations are finalised. The information above was current on 22 June 2021.

Objectives

The WHS Acts also build a consultative, proactive approach to managing health and safety in the workplace. Rather than imposing the will of the ‘person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU) on all workers, health and safety legislation attempts to build consultation with workers into the process of developing policy and processes for health and safety. Working towards a proactive approach means that the legislation prevents incidents in advance – identifying risks and taking action, rather than waiting for an incident to occur and then establishing the means of controlling the incident from happening again.

The states and territory Acts may have slight variations in the wording of their provisions (also called objects); however, the intent is the same as the Model Work Health and Safety Act 2011. That is, to ensure the health and safety of workers and workplaces. It does this by requiring organisations to:

• protect workers and other persons from harm by requiring duty holders to eliminate or minimise risk
• provide for fair and effective representation, consultation, and cooperation
• encourage unions and employer organisations to take a constructive role in promoting improvements in WHS practices
• promote the provision of advice, information, education, and training for work health and safety
• secure compliance with the Act through effective and appropriate compliance and enforcement measures
• ensure appropriate scrutiny and review of actions taken by persons with powers or functions under the Act
• provide a framework for continuous improvement
• maintain and strengthen national harmonisation of WHS laws and facilitating a consistent national approach to WHS.

Regulations

In short, regulations are legally binding. They take specific items within legislation (the Acts) and flesh them out in more detail. Referring to the legislative framework, you will remember that the regulations pick up issues from the Acts and add extra detail to them. Generally, you will find that the regulations cover a single specific aspect of health and safety. They will detail each of these issues by providing duties and procedures specific to the issue being examined. These issues are often related to a particular type of hazard, such as noise or machinery.

Some of the key WHS regulations in Australia are:

• Workers Compensation Regulation 2016
• Work Health and Safety Regulation 2017
• Trade Practices (Consumer Product Safety Standard) (Treadmills) Regulations 2009
• Dangerous Goods Safety (Storage and Handling of Non-explosives) Regulations 2007
• Gas and Electricity (Consumer Safety) Regulation 2018.

Codes of Practice

A Code of Practice provides practical guidelines on how an employer or a PCBU can build systems and procedures that will allow them to meet the requirements of specific legislation or regulations. In essence, they provide practical advice on how an organisation can comply with the Acts and Regulations. A PCBU can refer to a Code of Practice to suggest remedies to workplace risks.

Examples of Codes of Practice are:

• How to Manage Work Health and Safety Risks Code of Practice 2021
• Work Health and Safety (Excavation Work) Code of Practice 2015
• Work Health and Safety (Hazardous Manual Tasks) Code of Practice 2015
• Work Health and Safety (First Aid in the Workplace) Code of Practice 2015
• Work Health and Safety (Managing Electrical Risks in the Workplace) Code of Practice 2015.

For example, Bounce Fitness follow the National Fitness Industry Code of Practice. The purpose of the code is to promote appropriate standards of trading, inspire confidence and enable business operators to conduct service in a professional end ethical manner.

Standards

Standards are generally non-mandatory documents that set out specifications, procedures, and guidelines. These aim to ensure products, services, and systems are safe, consistent, and reliable. However, if standards are accredited through Australian Standards or joint Australian/New Zealand Standards, they are mandatory.⁷ Standards cover various subjects, such as the environment, construction, and manufacturing, and are reviewed regularly to ensure they keep current with changes in technologies.

Examples of mandatory standards are:

• AS 1428, Design for access and mobility
• ISO 45001:2018 Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems - Requirements with Guidance for use
• Trade Practices Act 1974 – Consumer Protection Notice No.9 of 1997 – Consumer Product Safety Standard.

The following five-minute video, produced in 2019, provides an overview of the WHS legislation in Australia. The video outlines what is meant by health and safety legislation in Australia and includes a description of WHS Statutory Law, Common Law, and Health and Safety Legislation. This video will equip you with an overall understanding of the key terms and aspects of WHS in Australia.

Duty of care

One of the binding obligations established in all Work Health and Safety Acts is the duty of care. Duty of care means that organisations must attempt to do everything they can to remove or minimise risks in the workplace. Put another way; they must exercise as much care as possible to prevent workplace incidents, injuries, and illnesses. Duty of care is not just the responsibility of PCBUs; this obligation extends to everyone in the workplace, including workers, supervisors, and visitors. Complying with health and safety policies is a legal requirement to ensure the wellbeing of everyone in the workplace.

Responsibilities and duties

Everyone in the workplace has specific responsibilities and duties concerning health and safety. As a supervisor or team leader, you are expected to have sound knowledge of these responsibilities and duties. Depending on the workplace, a supervisor or team leader may have responsibilities similar to a manager or officer. Note: in the Acts, responsibilities and duties are classed together under duties. The Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (ACT)  explains the responsibilities and/or duties of:

• a person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU)
• officer/manager/supervisor
• workers.

Select the following headings to learn more.

Note: To prepare for your end-of-module assessments, familiarise yourself with the primary responsibilities and/or duties for PCBUs, officers/managers/supervisors, and workers as per your state or territory WHS/OHS/OSH Act. You will find the links for each state and territory Act earlier in this topic.

For further details and information regarding your role and responsibilities and duties under work health and safety and workers' compensation laws, visit The Australian Government’s National Work Health and Safety and Workers Compensation Authority

Once you have identified and discussed the work health and safety laws to your work team, for example, at staff induction and WHS legislation refresher training for WHS Committee members, the next item on the list is your organisational policies. Every organisation has its own set of policies, procedures, and programs. As a supervisor, it is your responsibility to ensure that your work team is provided with relevant information about them. Your organisation’s WHS policies, procedures, and programs protect your work team, and others, and efficiently disseminating them, is essential for maintaining safety in the work environment.

Providing WHS/OHS policies, procedures, and programs to work team

Once you have identified and discussed the work health and safety laws with your work team, your next step (as a supervisor, manager or WHS/OHS officer) is to provide information on your organisation’s WHS/OHS policies and procedures and programs. Every organisation will develop its own policies and procedures. It is your responsibility to ensure your work team is aware of all relevant information. These policies, procedures, and programs are there to protect all workers. Disseminating these documents is necessary for maintaining safety in the workplace.

In the example of Bounce Fitness, their Work Health and Safety Policy and Procedures document states that three hard copies of the WHS policies and procedures must be provided at each gym. In addition, hard copies of individual WHS forms are kept in the administration office. These are also available for all staff online.

In a WHS/OHS policy and procedure manual, the individual policies within the document will define the organisation’s intentions concerning work health and safety and how they plan to deal with it. A WHS Policy and Procedure will generally include:

• policy statement
• WHS structure and duties of staff
• appropriate legislation, regulations, codes of practice, and standards
• specific policies and procedures:
  • hygiene
  • risk management
  • hazard identification
  • incident investigation
  • notifiable incidents
  • WHS consultation
  • Reporting notifiable incidents
  • aggregate and data collection
  • record-keeping
  • emergencies e.g., fire, natural disaster, terrorism, virus control, emergency, evacuation
•  training programs.

For example, the Bounce Fitness WHS Policy and Procedures document provides Maddison with the information (including policies, procedures and programs) she requires to ensure the gym is safe and without risk to staff, members and others. The Model WHS Act or a state or territory OHS or WHS Act and its provisions assist organisations develop their policies, procedures, and programs. At Bounce Fitness, they referenced:

• WHS Act: The Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW)
• Regulations: e.g., Trade Practices (Consumer Product Safety Standard) (Treadmills) Regulations 2009 
• Codes of Practice: e.g., Work Health and Safety (Hazardous Manual Tasks) Code of Practice 2015 
• Standards: AS 1428, Design for access and mobility.

Policies

A policy encompasses everything that you wish to achieve. Put another way; it is a statement on an issue that affects an organisation. This statement defines what an organisation hopes to accomplish when dealing with a given subject. Areas, subjects and topics where policies and procedures will be developed include:

• acquisition, use, storage, and disposal of hazardous chemicals
• alcohol and other drug intoxication
• family-friendly environment
• first aid provision and medical treatment
• maintenance and use of plant and equipment
• transport and storage of dangerous goods
• use and care of personal protective equipment
• WHS arrangements for on-site contractors and subcontractors, visitors, and members of the public
• site access and egress
• requirements of applicable Commonwealth and State or Territory WHS Acts, regulations, and Codes of Practice.

Procedures

Procedures are processes that consist of multiple steps that instruct workers to improve matters such as health and safety in the workplace. Procedures address the specific actions that a worker must take when executing a task that involves work health and safety. A procedure includes:

• the sequence of steps needed to perform work safely
• hazards involved in the task
• control measures such as necessary personal protective equipment.

Procedures an organisation may have include: 

• WHS induction
• staff induction policy and procedure
• consultation with employees
• maintenance and use of plant and equipment
• emergency and evacuation procedures
• alcohol and drug policy and procedure
• equipment cleaning procedure
• hand hygiene procedure
• safe handling and use of hazardous substances procedure
• hazard reporting procedures
• hazard identification procedures
• risk assessment, and the selection and implementation of risk controls
• purchasing policy and procedures
• safe operating procedures and instructions
• writing safe work method statements.

Programs

A program is a set of related measures or activities with a particular long-term aim. ⁸ WHS programs must be reviewed regularly, updated, and integrated into all work practices. Programs include:

• annual checks on the condition of gym equipment and office furniture
• cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) refresher training for fitness trainers.

Programs detail how an organisation identifies and controls risks. They can define the safety responsibilities of each member of an organisation. When safety programs are available and applied in a workplace, it ensures a response to any risks.

Programs an organisation may have include:

• consultation arrangements for workers in the work area
• incident investigation
• refresher training in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR)
• work-life balance strategies
• WHS audits and inspections
• emergency procedures and drills
• on-the-job training
• mentoring and coaching.

It is crucial to communicate effectively when providing information about identified hazards and outcomes of risk assessments and controls. How effective you are as a communicator has important implications. It can galvanise support, clarify confusion, avoid accidents and at the most extreme, prevent death. Effective communication is a skill you can develop. To ensure your work health and safety communications are effective, remember the following tips.

• Use reliable sources of information (for example, recent hazard and risk assessment reports) and provide concrete examples from the workplace
• Explain terminology and the purpose and structure of hazard identification and risk assessment documentation
• Practice open listening and use paraphrasing and questions to be confident your team has understood the information
• convey respect through your verbal and non-verbal language
• repeat important information at the end of your communication.

Consider the area of hazard identification and risk assessment outcomes and control. If this information is not shared correctly, the consequences could result in injuries, illnesses, and, unfortunately, fatalities. Effective, accurate, and timely communication is the key to keeping workplaces safe for everyone. Let us begin with becoming familiar with the following terms, as having a sound understanding of when to use each will aid you in conveying the required information.

• Hazard: A hazard is anything that can cause injury, illness, psychological damage or property damage in the workplace
• Risk: Risk refers to the likelihood that a hazard can occur
• Risk assessment: the act of identifying and analysing the extent and nature of the harm that can occur, i.e., severity and likelihood
• Risk control: Risk control refers to the reasonably practicable measures that an organisation has to eliminate or manage hazards in the workplace.

When it comes to work health and safety, identifying hazards, assessing risks, and introducing control measures are normal day-to-day processes. Every organisation has its way of documenting and monitoring this information and your work team needs to have access to this information to effectively contribute to maintaining a safe work environment. 

Communication systems and methods

In today’s digital age, many workplaces prefer to use digital methods to communicate information. It has proven to be efficient, organised, and easily accessible. However, that does not discount the value of other communication systems including traditional and procedural systems and methods for communicating. Ideally, your workplace should share WHS information using a mixture of these three systems. Regardless of which you use, WHS information needs to be consistent, clear, objective.

The following table provides examples of methods for delivering WHS information by the three communication systems.

Traditional	Digital	Procedural
Training manuals  Policies, procedures and forms stored in accessible locations e.g. office  On-the-job training  Mentoring and coaching  Safety brochures  Safety signs  Newsletters  WHS noticeboards	Training manuals  Policies, procedures and forms stored in accessible locations e.g. office  On-the-job training  Mentoring and coaching  Safety brochures  Safety signs  Newsletters  WHS noticeboards	Programs including inductions  WHS Committee meetings  Team meetings  Training sessions  Following policies, procedures and forms

Bounce Fitness use many of the methods identified in the table. However, they find two strategies very effective. Firstly, mentoring and coaching. These methods can be done formally or informally. Staff on the floor are encouraged to intervene if they see another staff member or a client performing tasks or training that poses a risk. Secondly, the fortnightly WHS committee meetings are an effective way to communicate information about hazards and outcomes of risk assessments and controls to staff. Thirdly, the use of the traditional WHS noticeboard which has been placed beside the social activities notice board to encourage staff to read the information!

Outcomes of clear communication

If a hazard identification and a risk assessment have been conducted, it can be assumed that risks exist. As previously discussed, you need to clearly communicate this information and other WHS information for your work team to protect themselves better. Clear and timely written and verbal communication ensures:

• policies and procedures are understood
• warnings against dangers in the workplace occur
• safe work practices are followed
• input from staff and others is encouraged
• misunderstandings are less likely.

Key communication considerations

There are some key considerations when communicating with your team, for example:

• create a receptive atmosphere in the work area and avoid negativity, blaming or tense environments when providing WHS information or training
• consider providing the information on different levels of complexity to ensure that everyone in the work team can understand it
• try to avoid unnecessary repetition
• use plain English and visuals and avoid the use of jargon
• listen to your team members and encourage feedback
• consider the use of humour but ensure it is appropriate.

Bounce Fitness prides itself on its staff engagement. To encourage active participation in identifying hazards and risk assessment, management has instigated a rewards scheme. Every month staff vote on the hazard and risk management strategy that has been of most relevance to staff and clients. The winner is rewarded with a paid half-day off work.  

Key points

• All organisations have a set of responsibilities and obligations under WHS law with regard to health and safety.
• All workers have the right to be in a workplace that will not endanger their safety in any way.
• Work health and safety legislation is broken into Acts, Regulations, and Codes of Practice.
• Standards are an essential addition to the legislation
• Your work team should be provided information on your organisation’s WHS policies, procedures, and programs in a readily accessible manner.

The final activity for this topic is a set of questions that will help you prepare for your formal assessment.