What you need is a Work Health & Safety Management System!!!
In my experience, there are a few common traits about work health and safety (WHS) and small business.
Most importantly, most small business people have no idea that breaches of health and safety (WHS) laws are criminal breaches! You can be prosecuted, fined, convicted, or even jailed.
But the biggest misconception that I have noticed, is that they need (and I quote): “Health and safety … (errrrr) … you know … (errrr) … stuff. You know, just the basic stuff. We’re only a small business you know.”
What all PCBUs (the new WHS term for employer) actually need, is a ‘Safety Management System’. The key word that people miss is ‘system’. It means “a businesslike approach to safety that is woven into the fabric of an organisation.”
That way your WHS system actually melds into your business and becomes part of the way that your people do their jobs.
Sounds complicated doesn’t it?? Well it doesn’t have to be. An effective ‘Safety Management System’ will:
- Define how your business is set up to manage risk;
- Identify the hazards at your business, assess the workplace ‘risk’, and then help you to identify and implement suitable controls (this becomes your ‘risk management system’);
- All the while, the WHS laws require you to carry on “effective communications” across all levels of your organisation (consultation). How do you do that?
- After all of that, you are still required to implement a process to identify and correct ‘non-conformities’ (audit and feedback); and
- And finally, you need to be able to demonstrate that you have implemented a continual improvement process.
sbws.com.au can help you devise an Safety Management System that will not only actually ‘work’ for your business, but will help you to better understand the WHS laws that could see you criminally convicted. Now isn’t that worth some thought?