What is OH&S?
Occupational health and safety (OH&S), also known as work or workplace health and safety (WHS), refers to protecting the health and safety of everyone in a workplace. This includes employees, customers, visitors and suppliers. Establishing safe work practices in your business may cost you time and money initially, but it is a strong investment in your business in the long term. Read on to find out how promoting work health and safety can benefit your business.
5 good reasons to promote work health and safety
Even if it wasn’t a legal requirement, implementing health and safety policies would still be a wise idea for employers. Here are five ways that strong work health and safety policies can benefit your business.
1. It makes good business sense
There’s no doubt that looking out for the health and safety of your employees is morally right in and of itself. However, there is also a strong business case for it. Having the best health and safety practices in place in your workplace can improve your business’s efficiency. This is because it reduces the risk of accidents, or worse, fatalities.
Minimising the risk of accidents and fatalities is clearly good for your employees, but it also means that you avoid costly staff absences and compensation payments. Not only that, you also avoid paperwork and court cases, as well as damage to your reputation and higher insurance premiums. A strong work health and safety program is not merely an expense, it is a sound investment in your business.
2. Improved recruitment and retention
Having strong work health and safety policies and procedures in your business can help to reduce your staff turnover rate. Employees want to work for an employer that takes their health and safety seriously. So, investing in OH&S can have a big positive impact on your ability to attract and retain quality staff.
When designing your work health and safety program, it’s important that you make training and education a key component. If you invest in developing your employees’ skills, not only will they work more efficiently and effectively, but they will also be more likely to want to build a long-term relationship with your business. Consider making your commitment to work health and safety a feature of your recruitment campaigns to attract and retain high-quality employees.
3. Improved employee health and wellbeing
Work health and safety is not limited to your employees’ physical safety. It includes managing psychosocial hazards, i.e., anything that can cause harm to your employees’ mental health. Psychosocial hazards may arise from the way in which work is designed or managed, the work environment, the work equipment or interactions and behaviours in the workplace. Among other things, they include job demands, such as long working hours, poor support, lack of role clarity, bullying and traumatic events.
Implementing measures to improve the wellbeing of your employees is good for your bottom line. Research shows that happy employees take fewer sick days, have lower rates of burnout and perform better. Employee wellbeing is also associated with lower staff turnover.
4. Increased productivity
Good work health and safety policies are associated with higher productivity. While cutting corners with your WHS policies may seem like a good way to boost output in the short term, it doesn’t pay off in the long term. The resulting absenteeism, higher staff turnover and lower staff morale are all associated with lower productivity. Conversely, when your employees feel that you are looking out for their health and safety, it’s likely that they will be more productive and perform better in their work.
5. It can give you a competitive edge
Having a strong work health and safety record may give you a competitive advantage when you are trying to win clients, contracts and tenders. Other businesses are more likely to put their trust in a business that has engaged and highly productive employees and low levels of absenteeism. After all, businesses with a commitment to safe work practices tend to yield higher profits.
What does the law say?
Being aware of the legal environment surrounding work health and safety (WHS) can help business owners understand the framework in which they operate. WHS laws outline expectations for providing safe conditions for employees, contractors, and visitors, and these requirements apply to businesses of all sizes.
Responsibility for regulating and enforcing WHS laws sits with the Commonwealth, states, and territories. While each jurisdiction administers its own legislation, most have adopted the model WHS laws developed by Safe Work Australia in 2011. Victoria uses its own Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004, which contains duties and responsibilities that share similarities with the model framework.
Workers’ compensation insurance is another part of the broader safety system. Many small businesses fall under state or territory schemes that provide cover when a worker experiences a job-related injury or illness. These schemes typically include provisions for wage replacement and medical or rehabilitation support, depending on the circumstances and local requirements.
What are the consequences of breaching WHS laws?
One very important reason to promote health and safety in your workplace is that breaching WHS laws can result in significant penalties, or worse, the closure of your business. Some examples of workplace health and safety breaches include the following:
- negligently causing the death of an employee
- taking any action that puts someone at risk of injury, illness or death
- not taking measures to prevent a risky situation from occurring
- failing to comply with regulatory requirements.
There are three categories of offences under the model WHS laws. The categories are based on the severity of the offence and the severity of the penalty that someone with a health and safety duty may incur for breaches.
Category 1: These offences incur the highest penalty. A category 1 offence occurs when a duty holder exposes someone to a risk of death or serious injury or illness without a reasonable excuse, or the duty holder is reckless regarding the risk of death or serious injury or illness.
Category 2: This is the next highest penalty. Offences under this category occur when a duty holder fails to comply with their health and safety duty, and that failure exposes someone to the risk of death or serious injury or illness.
Category 3: A duty holder commits a category 3 offence when they fail to comply with their health and safety duty.
Penalties include both substantial monetary fines and potential imprisonment, and the maximum monetary penalty amounts are updated annually in accordance with the movement of the Consumer Price Index. Bodies corporate are subject to higher penalties and individuals, for example, employees, are subject to lower penalties than persons conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU). These are the maximum penalties under the WHS model laws, but the penalties under state and territory WHS laws may differ.
How can I make sure I am compliant with WHS requirements?
Each state and territory has their own work health and safety laws, so it is important that you be aware of the requirements in your state.
All states and territories have the same framework for WHS laws:
- an act, which sets out broad responsibilities, obligations, offences, process and enforcement measures
- regulations, which specify the requirements for particular hazards and risks
- codes of practice, which provide information about how you can meet the WHS requirements (e.g., confined spaces, noise)
- regulating agency (regulator), which is responsible for inspecting workplaces, giving advice, enforcing the laws and issuing penalties for violations.
