Safety hazards are every business’s concern, be it a small retail store or a large corporation.
Workplace health and safety risks, if ignored or not properly assessed can impact an organisation and its leadership team in many different and quite significant ways that go much broader than any direct impacts on the person that might be unfortunately injured at work. While many organisations understand this fail to maintain a constant, holistic and risk based focus on ensuring a safe work environment for their people, and this can sometimes end up creating seriously unsafe working conditions for their employees and staff.
Listed below are some common mistakes that impact on the welfare and safety of your employees and that can cost your business a great deal of reputational, productivity and financial damage if not managed efficiently and effectively at all times.
- Not understanding the personal responsibilities and liabilities of leaders in establishing and maintaining a safe and healthy workplace.
Australian Workplace Health and Safety legislation makes a clear link between the establishment and operations of a safe and healthy workplace, non-compliance with the legislative requirements and the personal accountability and liability of the senior manager(s)/Director(s), with ultimate responsibility for decision making and operations of the workplace. This means that key senior managers can be personally sanctioned (including significant fines) where breaches have been proven and management planning and action has been found lacking.
- Failing to properly identify workplace health and safety hazards
Though this seems a bit obvious, every business must be aware of potential WH&S risks and threats around their company and employees – and do something about them.
Irrespective of your industry and specific organisational operations, health and safety risks and hazards are always present. While with some industries some hazards are less or more likely to occur, it is crucial to take the time to properly assess the ones that relate to your business.
- Inconsistent focus on staff training
Every business should have regular and ongoing assessments made by a competent risk WH&S expert, to enable them to proactively identify and manage their workplace health and safety environment.
Once the environmental assessment has been made, it is also vitally important to provide necessary training to all the employees to ensure that they understand the work environment and their role in ensuring that it is a safe and healthy place for all.
CONCLUSION
These were just a reminder of some of the issues that all workplaces need to have ‘front of mind’ in relation the WH&S.
For further assistance in evaluating the WH&S environment for your organisation, identifying and assessing risks and ensuring compliance with the requirements of the legislation, contact HBA Consulting.
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