September Updates
Axento Safety provides you with health and safety expert witness and risk management solutions to enhance your business success.
In addition to incident investigations and expert witness services, Axento Safety’s focus is to help create safe, healthy, innovative AND PRODUCTIVE workplaces. Axento Safety partner with you to take the pain out of health and safety, provide safety management systems, reduce the paperwork, achieve certifications, enable increased compliance, enable productivity improvement and achieve this cost effectively.
Contact Jon Temby to improve risk management, grow your business and make your life easier.
The essentials of complying with safety policies
The following comments were made by the safety team from FCW Lawyers (https://fcwlawyers.com.au/safety-in-brief-september-2020) their final paragraph below summarises what I have been encouraging all my clients to do. “The Appeal in BlueScope Steel Limited v Trevor Knowles [2020] FWCFB 3439 is an example of another win for employers who do the right thing.
A dismissal, found to be unfair by Commission Riordan, was overturned by the Full Bench of the Fair Work Commission (Full Bench), when the Full bench determined that the polices Mr Knowles didn’t comply with were reasonable, designed to prevent serious risk and were known by Mr Knowles. As a result the Full bench formed the view he was guilty of gross safety breaches which amounted to serious misconduct. See our detailed analysis on the case here.
Cases like this demonstrate that not only must businesses have thorough safety policies in place, they must also ensure their employees know the polices and are aware that failure to comply with the policies could lead to disciplinary consequences. Then, if employees fail to follow the policies any unfair dismissal claim is defensible.”
Jon’s questions for you: Do your employees have a detailed knowledge about what they need to do? Is this documented? Do your employees have the skills, materials, tools, space etc to do it safely? and, Is non-compliance with your OHS policies, procedures and reasonable instructions linked to disciplinary procedures? If you answered no to any of these questions then its time for a review.
OHS (COVID-19 Incident Notification) Regulations 2020 (Vic)
Temporary Occupational Health and Safety (COVID-19 Incident Notification) Regulations 2020 (OHS COVID-19 Regulations) commenced on 28 July 2020. See https://www.worksafe.vic.gov.au/notifiable-incidents-involving-coronavirus-covid-19
For those of you in Victoria, the following is most important:
In this state of emergency and pandemic, timely notification of potential workplace transmission of COVID‑19 is critical for efficient and effective management of related health and safety risks, and the prompt investigation of potential breaches of employer duties.
The OHS COVID-19 Regulations will extend the operation of Part 5 of the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (OHS Act) to require duty holders to notify WorkSafe if:
- an employer becomes aware that an employee or independent contractor engaged by the employer, and any employees of the independent contractor, has received a confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19, and has attended the workplace within the infectious period (being 14 days prior to receiving the confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 and until clearance from isolation has been received); or
- a self-employed person has received a confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 and has attended the workplace within the infectious period (being 14 days prior to receiving the confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 and until clearance from isolation has been received).
A penalty will apply for failing to notify WorkSafe under section 38 of the OHS Act – up to $39,652 (240 penalty units) for an individual or $198,264 (1200 penalty units) for a body corporate.
The OHS COVID-19 Regulations are temporary and will expire 12 months. WorkSafe will review the OHS COVID-19 Regulations during the 12-month period of operation.
Further information is available on the WorkSafe Vic website here https://www.worksafe.vic.gov.au/report-confirmed-covid-19-diagnosis, a PDF version of this information is also attached.
Please contact Jon Temby if you need any assistance with COVID-19 plans or other health and safety support.
New guidance to help transition to GHS 7
Australia will begin a two-year transition to the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals Revision 7 (GHS 7) on 1 January 2021.
To help businesses understand the changes under GHS 7, Safe Work Australia has published a dedicated GHS 7 web page and suite of information sheets. These information sheets provide details about classification and labelling requirements for workplace hazardous chemicals, and the duties of manufacturers, importers, suppliers and end users. See the GHS 7 web page here.
Special arrangements apply from 1 July 2020 to 1 January 2021. The transition to GHS 7 was due to start on 1 July 2020, however it was delayed due to the impact of COVID-19 on Australian businesses.
To ensure that businesses who had started to implement GHS 7 are not disadvantaged, work health and safety (WHS) regulators are allowing importers and manufacturers to classify and label chemicals in accordance with GHS 7 from 1 July 2020 to 1 January 2021, ahead of the official transitional period. Suppliers and end users can supply and use GHS 3 or GHS 7 labelled chemicals during this period.
Contact your WHS regulator for more information about the arrangements in your area
R U OK? Applies every day
Everyday should be an R U OK? day and last Thursday 10th Sept was the ‘official’ one – It is important for every organisation to initiate conversations about an important but difficult issue that affects many Australians across all workplaces and in all job roles.
The theme for this year’s R U OK? Day was ‘There’s more to say after R U OK?’, aimed at educating people what steps to take if someone says they are not OK.
The R U OK? Team says: “You don’t have to be an expert to keep the conversation going when someone says they’re not OK. By knowing what to say you can help someone feel supported and access appropriate help long before they’re in crisis, which can make a really positive difference to their life.”
The approach is straight forward. Ask the simple question of someone whether they are OK, and you start a conversation that may lead to a vulnerable person seeking assistance and potentially prevent suicide. See https://www.ruok.org.au/how-to-ask
If you can improve the feeling of connection between people, then the belief is that the risk of harm is reduced. If you are in a position to influence others in your organisation, you can encourage or inspire them to ask “are you ok?” and then to genuinely take the time to listen to the answer.
Workplace Manslaughter
Workplace manslaughter is now a criminal offence in Victoria, in line with the actual or intended changes in other states and territories. This new law doesn’t create additional responsibilities; it just introduces tougher penalties.
All business owners, managers and directors must provide a safe and healthy workplace for everyone within or affected by their organisation and its activities.
Farms: We know vehicles aren’t the only dangers on farms, but they account for the most deaths – about 75%. Common situations involve tractors, trucks, quad bikes and other vehicles rolling or running over someone. People can also become entangled in tractors and their attachments, particularly in power take-off (PTO)-driven machinery. See workplace-manslaughter:-some-steps-to-reduce-vehicle-risks-death-farms
You know your business and what could be dangerous – whatever job you and your workers are doing, always think of everyone’s health and safety first.
Managing coronavirus (COVID-19) exposure risks: Travelling in vehicle
This guidance provides information about managing risks exposure to coronavirus (COVID-19) when using vehicles for work. See managing- covid-19-exposure-risks-when-travelling-in-vehicles
Building resilience
This quote came from a story in The New Daily. “Resilience training, well being programs and all the other employee supports can be absolutely supercharged if employers simply get this bit right. I’ve been privileged to work with leadership teams to do just that.
“If you have a relationship problem, if you say to your partner, ‘You go off and fix yourself and come back when you’re ready to be the way I want you to be and then we’ll be all fine,’ that’s not going to work,” he says.
“But that’s what employers are saying when they send you off to yoga classes. ‘You go fix yourself there. We’re not going to change a bit’ .“That’s not a relationship fix. That’s being silly and stubborn.”
Professor Leiter says when people go to work, they’re looking for a sense of fulfillment and belonging to a community that values and respects them. “They’re looking for opportunities that confirm that they’re effective, capable people, and that this career has a direction that’s going somewhere,”.
Leadership guru, Peter Drucker, remarked: “The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence – it is to act with yesterday’s logic”.
Given the massive changes we are all making as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, that’s a timely reminder of why it’s so necessary to put effort into creating the best possible environment for decision making. Check out the COVID-19 Action Plan as detailed in the July Update. It can be available to you to assist your COVID related, health and safety decision making based on today’s logic.
Jons comment: Are you, your people and your business thriving? A significant part of our role as managers is to provide opportunities to ensure that our people are safe, trained, effective, capable and successful people, and that their career has a direction that’s going somewhere positive. Look after your employees, especially from a mental health perspective, communicate well, involve, engage and support them. If we do, we all thrive. As people managers, do we need to review our leadership roles and business relationships in this context? A review might be help you and your people to enjoy greater success.
COVID-19 Face Coverings
WorkSafe recently published ‘Managing Coronavirus (COVID-19) risk: Face coverings in workplaces’ guidance. It may be of use.
Risk Management – a different approach
It is probably time to review how you approach risk and to consider re-positioning the relationship between risk and opportunity from “what could go wrong?” to “what needs to go right?”. Without identifying both sides of this equation, we may not arrive at the best solutions. By knowing what could go wrong, we have a significant incentive to identify what must go right.
Axento Safety suggest gathering a small team together to discuss the difference between these approaches and how it can be applied to your business activities. Following that, have the team review the Risk Register to identify what needs to go right in order to keep the business viable without hurting anyone.
Safety Alert: Chain recoil causes fatality
The purpose of this Safety Alert is to highlight the risk of serious injury or death when using chains in towing or recovery operations. See safety-alert-chain-recoil-causes-fatal-injuries