What is Work Health and Safety Risk Management?

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WHS risk management is the systematic process of identifying hazards, assessing the risks associated with those hazards, instituting control measures that will minimise or eliminate the risks, and reviewing the control measures periodically to reaffirm they are effective. The duty to manage risks lies with the Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU.)

Every company, business, and organisation must identify reasonably foreseeable hazards and must: 

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(a) eliminate risks to health and safety so far as is reasonably practicable, and

(b) if it is not reasonably practicable to eliminate risks to health and safety—minimise those risks so far as is reasonably practicable.

Directors of the business must ensure that this legal requirement translates into real-world actions and measures that exist and are known and followed in the workplace. Directors may be personally liable for a breach.

Supervisors and managers must ensure staff follow the protocols and controls in place for risks that have been managed (controlled.) These may include proper manual handling techniques, proper handling and storage of chemicals, using machinery and tools correctly, and wearing of appropriate PPE.  

Psychosocial risk management

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Non-physical risks and hazards must also be managed in the workplace. The overarching duty also belongs to the PCBU. Amendments to the WHS Act and WHS Regulation were introduced in October 2022.

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Psychosocial hazards examples include workplace bullying and harassment which had formerly been under the jurisdiction of the Fair Work Commission since January 2014. Incidents of "gas lighting" and "quiet quitting" may signal psychosocial hazards exist in the workplace.

The New South Wales workplace health and safety Regulator, SafeWork NSW is additionally tasked with overseeing that businesses and organisations implement and adhere to the new requirements to manage psychosocial risks and hazards in the workplace as they would physical WHS risks and hazards, which are not so much "additional duties" but are simply an expansion on duties already stated in the WHS Act and WHS Regulation that are to be complied with in the first place. 

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To complement this, the Code of Practice: Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work (2022) was published by SafeWork NSW which gives examples of psychological hazards in the workplace and recommendations how to manage psychosocial risks, hazards, and incidents. 

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Information, Training, and Instruction

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Clause 39 of the WHS Regulation 2017 requires that a PCBU must provide information, training and instruction for workers (this includes supervisors, managers, and team leaders) which is suitable and adequate having regard to:

1. the nature of the work that they do

2. the nature of the risks associated with the work they do, and

3. the control measures

When risks have been managed, it is enforceable that workers follow any and all controls that have been put in place if the risk or hazard was not able to be eliminated entirely. Every worker has this duty to themselves and to others whom they work or interact with while at work.

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