“No Risk” Risk Assessment
The injuries and two fatalities we covered in recent articles involved situations where flaws in the risk assessment and controls were key elements. See A Fatal Lack of Officer Due Diligence, and Achieving Compliance with Section 19 WHS Act
In these incidents either the assessment and risk controls were not effective, an assessment had not been done, or the risks were not real to the workers, supervisors or managers and so controls were not fully implemented.
How to improve risk assessment and implementation of controls in your workplace.
Even if you have risk assessment and controls that are soundly based you need to be sure that workers, supervisors and managers understand the why and the how of the risks that need to be handled (section 19(3)f WHS Act).
They need to be real about the risks, the consequences and the likelihood of injury or fatality. That provides them with motivation, reason and know-how to do their work according to safe work procedures. If they don’t have that you can end up with systems of work that are not 100% safe and therefore they and the PCBU will be not be compliant with WHS law.
One solution we offer you is our new one day WHS Risk Assessment Course for delivery at your workplace. It provides or improves the knowledge and skills of your attendees to identify, assess and control the hazards in your workplace using your documents.
It improves the implementation of what is needed in your workplace to help satisfy the WHS Act:
- Section 17 Management of Risks
- Section 18 What is Reasonably Practicable, and
- Section 19 Primary Duty of Care
And it follows the Code of Practice: How to Manage WHS Risks
You can read and download a copy of the course outline from our website HERE. We can also tailor this course to meet your exact needs.
You are welcome to download & distribute this article in your workplace if you feel it may be useful
