Managing workplace health and safety

Workplace health and safety risks are present in every company, and they do not only refer to physical health but mental health as well. Every employer has a duty of care towards employees, which means that they need to take reasonable steps to provide them with a safe working environment. Companies sometimes misunderstand the definition of workplace health and safety. Over the last decade, more than 1,850 workers have died in Australia and there have also been over a million serious workers’ compensation claims. Companies do not only need to create a safe workplace, but also have to look for ways to respond to a compensation claim if one arises. 

Types of workplace health and safety risks

Depending on the organisation, employers may face different types of risks. These usually include:

• Physical hazards: Wet floors, loose, poorly organised or exposed cables, uneven and poorly built surfaces, bad office layout, faulty wiring
• Physical tasks. Usually, those that require employees to lift, carry, push or pull heavy objects that may cause problems instantly or in the long term. Standing or sitting for too long or doing many repetitive tasks can also be considered risks. 
• Machinery practices: How employees use machinery, what safeguards are in place and potential machinery malfunctions
• Chemicals and substances: Certain chemicals and fumes can be a danger to employees and especially pregnant individuals. Moreover, there are also risks with flammable substances and even dust. 
• Infections: Employees allowed to come into work sick can carry viruses, bacteria or other severe illnesses. 
• Desk setup: Height of monitors, chairs, desks, employee posture, distance of objects. 
• Work-from-home setup: The setup employees have while working from home also accounts as a workplace health and safety risk. 
• Mental health risks: Increased workload, unrealistic deadlines, conflicts at work, workplace harassment and bullying, as well as lack of recognition, can contribute to a decline in an employee’s wellbeing
• Work environment: Workplace ventilation and temperature.

This is a comprehensive list that can, of course, be expanded depending on the nature of the business, where it operates and the industry it operates in. 

Managing workplace health and safety

Workplaces are not perfect, and while the expectation is to be as safe as possible, there will be situations where the workload is too high, rooms become messy and people let their guard down. It might not be possible to completely eliminate workplace health and safety issues but there are many ways to minimise them. 

Businesses have to:

• Identify
• Assess
• Control
• Monitor and review

Identify

Going back to risk management, workplace health and safety risks can be treated like any other. The process is the same. Companies have to identify what risks they could face in:

• Physical work environment 
• Work-from-home environment
• Digital environment 

They will need to look at the equipment used, how staff interact with one another, the workplace design and how tasks are currently performed. For example, do employees wear masks when handling hazardous chemicals? Do they have ergonomic chairs both at the office and at home? 

As the business will need to examine each part of the workplace carefully, it might ask employees for their help to identify more risks than the ones visible to them. They might choose to look through past records, check cases in similar industries and spend some time with employees to analyse how tasks are performed. 

Assess

Once some risks have been identified, the team will need to determine which risks are more severe than others. To do that, the likelihood of occurrence needs to be taken into account as well as the impact it could have on the workplace. Will the risk lead to muscle strain? Death? Illness? A long-term condition?

The company may assign a risk rating to each risk and create a risk matrix to help with prioritisation. The risk assessment can be helpful if the entity is going through a period of change where it can be hard to predict what dangers its workplace could be vulnerable to. 

There may be some risks that have a very severe impact but it can be hard to calculate how likely they are to occur. Deciding which problems need to be handled promptly will then lead to the development of control measures.

Control

Once workplace health and safety risks have been identified and assessed, the employer will need to figure out how they will respond to the threats they could face. There are five paths to choose from:

• Elimination
• Substitution
• Isolation
• Avoidance
• Engineering or administrative controls

Elimination

The most ideal way to deal with workplace health and safety risks is to completely remove them from the workplace. While this is not always possible, it is the most effective control measure as it creates a safer environment. The risk of falling off a ladder when reaching for objects may be eliminated by introducing lower-height shelves. Noisy machinery could be replaced with quieter alternatives, slippery floors could be replaced with non-slippery material. 

Substitution

Substitution is the second most effective way to reduce workplace health and safety risks. If a risk cannot be eliminated, the business will need to look for a way to substitute the current threat. A very toxic chemical may be replaced with one that is significantly less harmful, the workflow of performing a task may change to a less harmful one. 

Isolation

If an area poses risks that cannot be dealt with, the company may choose to move its operations to a safer place and completely close off the space from employees. In certain scenarios where an employee is the cause of the risk – e.g. bullying, isolation may mean suspending an employee for some amount of time. 

Avoidance

Workplaces may choose to avoid a risky area with the hopes of preventing a risk from materialising. A lot of workplace accidents occur on the road. Risk avoidance could see a route changing so staff can drive through a safer road than the high-risk one they usually go through. By avoiding that road, the company may increase delivery times but will decrease the threat to the driver as they will not have to drive through a poorly designed street. 

Engineering or administrative controls

Lastly, businesses may employ certain measures, such as trolleys to lift heavy equipment or personal protective equipment (PPE), to minimise workplace health and safety risks. The controls may not completely eliminate a risk but will reduce it enough. It is important to note that their effectiveness may be compromised due to human error. This is why they are usually accompanied by extensive training. 

Monitor and review

Are the control measures effective? Once steps have been taken to manage workplace health and safety risks, it is critical that managers monitor their effectiveness and suggest methods by which they can be improved. For example, a manager may give an employee time off to help prevent burnout, but the risk may be that the job description is poorly designed. There may also be new risks that are identified as others are taken care of. 

Frequent reviews can ensure that the workplace is as safe as it can be and employee wellbeing is prioritised. Risk management is a time-consuming process, but if done right, it can have more advantages than disadvantages. 

Why should you prioritise workplace health and safety? 

Workplace health and safety protects not only the employees but also the business. Workplaces that fail to comply with the Work Health and Safety Act in Australia can be liable to legal fees, a drop in productivity and bad publicity. No one wants to work in a sketchy environment where they feel unsafe. That also extends to privacy, meaning that their data is not properly stored, and discrimination, which sees employees being unfairly treated.

Just like employers have a duty of care towards their employees, staff are responsible for taking care of themselves and complying with workplace health and safety instructions. If training and policies are not complied with, the employee may suffer from an injury and other colleagues may have to take over their workload, which creates even more risks. 

Workplace health and safety requires teamwork

Employees should speak up if they notice that one of their colleagues is having a hard time balancing work or if they notice a physical hazard. Without individuals coming forward, some risks might go unnoticed. Focus on creating a safe environment where staff feel empowered to speak up when they notice an issue and your attitude shows that their wellbeing matters. If workplace health and safety reports are not followed up, chances are fewer employees will share an issue. 

At Polonious, we have been trusted for over a decade to support investigators who are looking into workplace health and safety concerns. We provide employers with a whistleblower hotline where they can report potential threats and provide investigators with the right tools to look into these reports. By automating manual administrative tasks, bringing a holistic approach to process management and helping with optimal task allocation, we make investigations easy. 

Our system can be integrated with a range of software and it can also provide a risk matrix to highlight key areas that investigators need to look out for. If you are looking to improve your workplace health and safety, reach out today! We will be happy to show you how companies across the world use our system to tackle different types of threats.