April Updates
Axento Safety: Providing you with expert risk management solutions to enhance your business success.
Axento Safety’s focus is to help create safe, healthy, innovative AND PRODUCTIVE workplaces. By working with Axento Safety, you can refocus on your productive activities, achieve them more safely and with greater peace of mind.
Axento Safety specialise in taking the pain out of health and safety management, reducing the paperwork, making your life easier, enabling increased compliance, enabling productivity improvement and doing it cost effectively. Partnering with Axento Safety enables you to grow your business and sleep better at night.
New Codes of Practice published by Safe Work Australia
Safe Work Australia has recently published the following codes of practice:
- Spray Painting and Powder Coating
- Demolition Work
- First Aid in the Workplace
- Managing Electrical Risks in the Workplace
- Excavation Work
- Managing the Risk of Falls at Workplaces and
- Labelling of Workplace Hazardous Chemicals
Jons Comment: These Codes of Practice (COP’s) will apply to all states other than Victoria and WA and may not yet be endorsed by these states, however a quick check on your safety regulators website will verify their applicability. For Victorian and WA businesses, it could be useful to check these COP’s for any new information that may assist your business. It is important to understand that Codes of Practice only provide advisory information, however failure to follow applicable COP’s can be used as evidence of failing to meet your obligation to protect your workers.
Innovation for competitive advantage
While it may be increasingly difficult for organisations to achieve competitive advantage through cost, service and quality, the good news is that sustainable advantage is also available through innovation. Read more
Jons Comment: Whilst it is increasingly difficult for organisations to achieve competitive advantage through cost, service and quality, the good news is that sustainable advantage is available through innovation. Effective innovation can be achieved when all employees are engaged and involved. What is the best way to get all employees involved and thinking about how to do things better? –Health and Safety, because it is personal. Talk to Axento Safety to get innovation happening in your organisation.
Paperwork or performance – where is your focus?
I am occasionally really dismayed when I visit sites. I sometimes see management and supervisors, in all industry sectors, focussing primarily on their minor health and safety issues and producing intimidating volumes of paperwork such as highly detailed, multi-paged Work Method Statements and then auditing their content rather than their implementation. Any wonder that they are frustrated by their health and safety performance! A far more effective approach is to focus on having competent people, safe equipment and a safe way to do the job. This approach is backed up by a brief summary of the key points in your Work Method Statement. Having a ‘paperwork focus’ can blind us to the bigger picture of safe and efficient performance and the flexibility necessary to maintain adequate levels of safety within a dynamic working environment.
If you are getting bogged down in safety paperwork rather than safety performance, now may be the time for a review. You could choose to call Axento Safety to help you speed up the process and help your business perform better.
Giving young workers a good start
As a supervisor or manager of a young worker, you have the greatest influence on their attitude to work safety. This means ensuring an appropriate level of supervision relevant to the tasks that they are performing. Watch the film to see two young workers going about their work day and how the interactions with their supervisors and their experiences can differ. View the 12 minute film here or Download a copy of this film here.
Jons Comment: This short film clip is based on construction but it is relevant to all industry areas. It is worth viewing and applying the approach to your young and/or new workers.
Change management and staff engagement
“When the going gets tough, the tough get going”. It’s an age-old adage but one that resonates with all walks of life and considerably more so in the face of monumental and ongoing change. Read more
Jons Comment: This article is about engaging key executives as change agents and developing and investing in your in-house talent. Health and safety are ideal tools for triggering engagement, change and business growth. Seek Axento Safety support to achieve positive business outcomes through health and safety.
WA proposal to ban live electrical work
Western Australia’s EnergySafety has issued a discussion paper to industry to ban live electrical work. The discussion paper follows and incident where two men were killed and another two were severely injured in an explosion while doing electrical work in February. View or download the discussion paper , View media report .
Jons Comment: Banning live electrical work has been discussed unofficially in several Australian states. If WA introduces a ban on live electrical work, we can be sure that all other states will be watching closely. The issue of commissioning electrical work may become even more complex. If you need assistance with procedures for live electrical work, please contact me.
Safety Alert – multi-cutters and other discs on power and air tools
Workplace Health and Safety Queensland has revised and reissued its Safety Alert that highlights the hazards associated with the use of multi-cutters and grinding or cutting discs fitted on power tools and air tools. Read more
Jons Comment: This alert should trigger a review of tool usage in all workplaces. It is important that all workers are competent to use all the tools required for their jobs, all tools are fit for purpose and are they are used in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions. If you need assistance to verify worker safety, please contact Axento Safety
Near misses –are we taking them seriously?
“A near miss is the closest thing we have to a free lunch. It offers valuable lessons and clues for avoiding future incidents, if only we can effectively capture and learn those lessons. Bitter experience tells us that whatever we are currently doing in terms of near miss investigations is not working because we don’t seem to be capitalising on the opportunity presented by the averted accident.” (Michael Tooma, Norton Rose Fulbright, March 2015)
Jons Comment: My approach is always to investigate an incident on the most probable, more serious outcome rather than the actual outcome. This approach results in us taking the near miss more seriously and investigating it on the basis that had the situation been marginally different we might well have been investigating a major incident.
When an incident occurs it is important to quickly decide whether legal support is required and whether the investigation should be conducted under legal privilege. The investigation seeks to understand all the relevant causal factors. Causal factors to evaluate include but are not limited to the people involved, the environment in which the incident occurred and the plant and equipment which may have been involved. Good investigations should identify opportunities for effective prevention. Occasionally an investigation can also demonstrate the effectiveness of existing prevention activities. If you need assistance with investigations or would like training for key people so that they can conduct them, please contact Axento Safety.
Qld employers can request medical info
Legislation has been in place in Queensland since late 2013 where employers can now request information about pre-existing injuries or medical conditions from potential workers. “It is still possible for companies to deliver their workplace health and safety duty of care, while not discriminating against job candidates.” See the following video, uploaded by WorkCover Queensland. Queensland WorkCover: Pre-existing injuries and medical conditions
Jons Comment: This is a detailed video explanation of the situation is QLD and worth watching. You may wish to apply the ideas contained in the QLD webinar in your state but be aware that the legal situation is marginally different in other states and territories and compliance within your jurisdiction is important.
Linfox Australia fined following crush incident
The Federal Court recently fined Linfox Australia $90,000 for failing to provide a safe work environment following a forklift incident in which an employee suffered serious head and facial injuries. Read more…
Jons Comment: This incident highlights the importance of understanding the changes that often occur in our working environments then modifying how we work to ensure ongoing safety. Increased situational awareness is needed by employees as well as management: What are you doing to improve employee situational awareness and therefore the resilience of your organisation?
No longer flying high – Full Bench rules on cannabis testing
Previous Fair Work Commission decisions have found that termination of employment on the basis that an employee has returned a positive alcohol or other drug test in circumstances where there is no evidence that the employee was actually impaired at work is likely to be harsh, unjust or unreasonable.
One of the difficulties this has raised for employers has been that there is no test currently available which categorically detects impairment as a result of cannabis use.
A recent decision of a Full Bench of the Fair Work Commission has confirmed that, at least for employees working in safety critical roles, termination for breach of a zero tolerance or prescribed threshold policy omight be appropriate, even where there is no evidence of impairment. Read more
Jons Comment: This decision suggests that, at least in the context of safety critical workplaces, the tide may be shifting in favour of a zero tolerance approach. Are parts of your business safety critical? How do you ensure that all personnel are competent to do their tasks safely? I am a supporter of zero tolerance for task impairment whether it be caused by prescribed, legal or illicit drugs. How it is dealt with in the workplace will depend on your policies, procedures, training and organisational culture. Reviewing them in this context could be a useful exercise.
Are you new to Axento Safety?
If you are looking for a recognised expert health and safety advisor who is well qualified, experienced, pro-active and commercially astute – I invite you to contact me.
Jon Temby, Director