Minimise work health and safety risk, maximise performance and culture
In Australia, all businesses are required to satisfy strict WHS requirements driven by legislation, standards and codes of practice. Compliant and embedded WHS Management System can help minimise the risk of facing legal action in the event of a workplace incident and can support a positive working environment for your staff and others.
The Mindful Risk Group can support you to enhance and improve your safety management system, can undertake a WHS audit to allow you to gauge your current performance and identify areas of improvement or non-compliance. Our workplace health & safety consultants can support you with systems, documents and training to further embed your safety program, ensuring all workplace safety obligations are fulfilled, all the while partnering with you to achieve your desired safety culture.
The Mindful Risk team are recognised thought leaders in Workplace Health and Safety. Our team all have real world expertise from highly regulated sectors such as mining, financial services, government and logistics. This is supported by expertise gathered from over 30 years of experience as educators, authors, policy and legislation advisors to government and senior business leaders.
We are outcomes focussed safety professionals, so you can rely on us identifying imminent risk exposures for your organisation and providing focussed & tailored advice to deliver compliance and performance in WHS.
Our vision is to bring clarity and awareness to risk management to empower leaders to confidently respond and seize opportunities
Under Australian legislation, and as detailed in the Workplace Health and Safety Act, we are all responsible for WHS at work. We are all duty holders whether we are the PCBU, Officers, Workers or Others. And some of us hold more than one duty! These duties are personal and whilst we might engage others to perform certain tasks, duty holders retain the final responsibility for their WHS duties. All duty holders, including workers, can be prosecuted for failing to meet their duties.
The types and magnitude of the fines can vary depending upon the prosecution being made, the state it occurred in and the level of severity of the offence. Some fines can be $000’s, but some can be over $1m, and you can no longer insure your way out of paying for your fines!
The Australian and International Standard for WSH, AS/NZS ISO 45001 defines a hazard as “source with a potential to cause injury and ill-health”. This standard defines risk as “effect of uncertainty”. In simpler terms, think of it this way – the hazard is the thing that will cause the harm, the risk is the outcome when you interact with the hazard. Some examples could be
Hazard – electricity – Risk – electrocution
Hazard – a ladder – Risk – climbing it and falling off
Officers in organisations are required to exercise Due Diligence with regard to WHS in their business. There are many ways that Officers can go out exercising their Due Diligence requirements, however essentially it means that Officers must understand the hazards and risks of their business and must understand how these hazards and risks are being controlled and managed. Officers should regularly receive reports on hazards, risks and incidents and also give consideration to all hazards and risks when changing business practices, implementing new ways of working and when acquiring new businesses.
PCBUs can take out insurance with regard to managing any legal costs associated with any court or legal action. However it is not possible in Australia to take out insurance to cover the fines or penalties that may result from a WHS prosecution.
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