Current Policies of WHS-Free-Samples for Students-Myassignment

Question: Discuss about the Current Policies of WHS. Answer: WHSMS in brief A work health and safety management (WHSMS) can said to be an organized system in relation to the work health and safety management system in workplaces. Therefore, it is a framework that permits the management to put a complete system of protection in place. The size of an organization will determine how complex the system will be, along with the manner in which it is organized and the nature of the business. A WHSMS requires various things, which includes strategies of communication and consultation, review and control of documents, control of purchasing, a review of work based health and safety systems and also an account of internal and external auditing (Straker et al., 2016). In order to implement a WHSMS effectively, there must be full commitment on the managements part along with the training of the employees in the new policies and procedures. Duty holders in Australian WHS In Australian WHS, a duty holder can be said to be a person, who is like a sports manager, who ensures that the all matters in sports are managed according to the constitution of the club and who becomes answerable to the governing body of the club. Therefore, a duty holder is a person who ensures that health and safety is maintained in a workplace (Fewster, 2015). According to the Work Health and Safety Act, 2001 and the Work Health and Safety Regulations 2011, duty holders are those who have a duty to eliminate all health and safety related risks or to minimize such risks in order to ensure health and safety in workplaces (Claxton, 2017). Under the Australian WHSMS, there are three types of duty holders. They are: PCBUS (Person undertaking a business or undertaking) - A PCBU may be defined as an organization or an individual person, conducting an undertaking or business (Martinov-Bennie et al., 2014). For example, public companies, private companies, government departments and authorities, schools, partners in partnership, sole traders and self-employed, individual trustee of trusts, etc Officers- Officers include senior executives who make or participate in decision making, which affects the business or undertaking either partly or solely. AN officer can be a person defined under section- 9 of the Corporations Act (excluding a partner in partnership), an officer of the Crown and a public authority officer. Workers and other persons at the workplace- Includes all other people in the workplace and also those who are present at the workplace. It is to be mentioned that the WHS Act clearly states that an individual is not a PCBU in cases where they are in an undertaking or a business only as an officer or worker. Individuals include directors belonging to managerial positions and having specific and separate duties as officers. WHS Resources There are certain resources, which are required to be allocated for ensuring that the WHS obligations are met. These resources include financial, human and management support (Grasso, 2016). In cases of additional resources for managing WHS, the senior manager or the executive manager must take necessary steps accordingly. Some of the resources that are required are: WHS toolbox talks- This includes a number of power point presentation, which is used in the staff meetings, etc and acts as the basis of the toolbox talks in order to provide opportunity for refresher training or reinforcement of key areas. Human resources for managing WHS- It must be ensured by the workers that the workers have adequate training and resources for keeping themselves safe and for understanding potential risks and ability to act in accordance with such risks, when identified. Safe posters- These posters usually provide a safety guide in workplace for the workers and include guidelines for safe work. Use of this is also helps in implanting work health and safety in workplaces. Other resources of providing healthy workplace- The various other measures relating to health of the workers are also a source of WHS, which is highly required. Communication/Consultation plan Consultation or communication on health and safety is a process that goes in two ways and it is regarded as the opportunity to add value while making decisions. This process involves talking about issues, listening and raising concerns, role understanding, seeking of information and sharing of views, discussion on such issues, attending meetings and considering everything before decision making. Such communication/ consultation plans are made by the WHS experts (Gunningham Sinclair, 2014). Consultation and communication along with collaboration is a fundamental part of the WHSMS and also a part of each strategic objective with the health and safety strategy. It is not possible to achieve communication, consultation and collaboration effectively with a single strategic objective or project, which is carried out with in that particular objective. It must be done in a way daily business is conducted. For proper implementation of a WHSMS, it is important to communicate information effec tively so that all the potential stakeholders can understand it, which is imperative for the purpose. WHS experts are the duty holders under the WHSMS. They play an important role in communication and consultation. The health and safety measures in a workplace is comm8nicated by these duty holders and similarly all problems must be communicated to them so that they can take necessary measures and implement the WHS legislations and regulations in order to use maintain the work health and safety standards in workplaces (Zhang et al., 2015). The OHS Act, 2004 makes it a legal requirement that effective consultation must be done in regular intervals with the employees in a workplace as engaging the employees will help in improving the health and safety in workplaces. The Workplace Manager, Management OHS Nominee and the HSR are the WHS experts and are responsible for maintaining WHS standards. The Workplace Manager or the OHS Nominee must make consultative arrangements with the Health a nd Safety Representative (HSR) and employees while making or taking any decision regarding The OHS/WHS in workplace. In case of information that is confidential, the management OHS Nominee or and the Workplace manager must take legal help before making any decisions. The HSR, management OHS nominee, workplace manager, all should, in accordance with the WHS/OHS Act, disclose all such information to the employees and consult with them, which is required. They are also required to implement OHS issue resolution process. For such resolution process, the OHS resolution Flowchart is used, which is to be communicated to the employees and prominently displayed in the workplaces (De Cieri et al., 2015). Thus, it is important and a mandate under the WHS standards, to create a communication/consultation plan and use it accordingly, to implement the WHS standards in the workplaces, with the help of the WHS experts. Requirements of WHS in case of participation agreements In order to provide issue resolution to the Naja Group of Colleges, the requirements can be emphasized. It is noteworthy to mention here that in order to resolve issue arising out of various sections, it is necessary that the parties to the issue must be present while resolving the issue (Forsyth, 2014). The issue must be resolved in consultation with the workers who has been affected and the Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU). In order to resolve issues, the management of the Naja Group of Colleges has taken various steps in order to ensure health and safety in workplace. The PCBUs has been encouraged by the Work Health and Safety Act 2012(SA) (WHS Act) to involve procedures of issue resolution in order to solve disputes with the workers (Ghahramani, 2016). However, in the absence of agreed procedures, the procedure of issue resolution which is depicted under the Work Health and Safety Regulations 2012 (SA) (WHS Regulations) needs to be followed (?nan, Gl Y?lmaz, 2017). In this regard, it is noteworthy to mention here that, the actual procedure for resolving issues is depicted in Regulation 22. In order to resolve issues, the Naja Group of Colleges acted according to the regulations of WHS and followed the default procedure for the purpose of issue resolution in Regulation 22. In this context, the Naja Group of Colleges in an attempt to resolve the issue arising out of health and safety has undertaken the following matters- The degree of risk involved to the workers and other persons working for the organization. The location and number of such workers including other persons who has been affected by the issue. The permanent and temporary measures that needs to be implemented for the purpose of resolving the issue. The person who will take the responsibility in implementing various measures of resolution. It is important that any individual conducting a business should interact with the workers in order to keep track of the issues faced by them (Johnstone, 2014). Therefore, in the present case the Naja Group of Colleges has acted according to the measures set up by the WHS Act in order to identify various risks and hazards associated with the work carried out by the workers. In this regard, the Naja Group of Colleges has been successful in making decisions for the purpose of eliminating the risks involved in workplace. The management of the Naja Group of Colleges should consult with the present workers and propose various changes so that it benefits the working environment and improves the health and safety conditions of the organization. It is important to provide feedbacks on various outcomes. However, it is important that such feedback must be positive and should be related to workers health and safety. Identifying the inadequacies The legislation of WHS in Australia emphasized on the part that PCBUs must consult with the workers in order to identify the hazardous risks or situations arising out of workplace (Lingard, 2015). Therefore, in case of the Naja Group of Colleges, it is important that the management of the organization should undertake various situations in which risks are likely to be found. The management should identify the working environment of the organization including the past accidents and make sure that such accidents do not occur again. The management should focus on the risks involved while using age old equipments and materials which can be hazardous at times. In this regard, the management should take into consideration the Material Safety Data Sheets in order to determine various safety precautions. In order to identify the inadequacies it is important to take into account the various risk factors that are involved in a workplace (McDermott, Henne Hayes, 2017). In an organization, various risks factors are involved which needs to be identified. Therefore, in the present case study, it is necessary that the management of the Naja Group of Colleges should review the information related to health and safety and such information should be obtained from any authoritative source so that it can be relied upon. However, it is necessary that such information should be relevant to the identified inadequacy. After the identification process, it is important for the management to evaluate the nature of the hazard regarding its seriousness (Mohammadfam et al., 2016). In this regard, the management of Naja Group of Colleges should take into account the various kinds of injuries, damages and illness that could arise as a result of the hazardous incident. It is necessary the that management sh ould also evaluate the number of workers exposed to such incident as well as the possible outcome that could result due to exposure to this kind of hazard. The management is at the duty to evaluate the factors that could actually cause harm and affect the betterment of the workers to a large extent (O'Neill Wolfe, 2014). In this regard, it is noteworthy to mention here that the management should consider the related chain of events which are consistent to the nature of the risk. However, the level of risk may increase the likelihood of harm in the future. The concept of likelihood of harm is involved when there is a situation that is concerned with consequential harm (Schofield, Reeve McCallum, 2014). In this regard, the management is at the authority to determine that in what way and in what conditions the maximum number of workers will be exposed to a hazardous situation keeping in track the duration. Requirements, use and maintenance of records For the purpose of record keeping, the requirements, use and the maintenance of records should be considered. In this regard, it is noteworthy to mention here that the management of Naja Group of Colleges should act in accordance with the details provided by the record keeping requirements as depicted in the Model Work Health and Safety Regulation. The following areas have been covered by the Model Work Health and Safety Regulation- The contaminated levels of Air-borne. Work related to high risk. Confined spaces. Electrical installations and equipment. Presence of hazardous chemicals. Lead and Asbestos. Facilities involving major hazards. According to the provisions of Section 50(2) of the WHS Act, it is important that the management of an organization must record the results associated with air monitoring and such records should be kept for thirty years from the date on which such record has been made (Sutherland, 2015). The management should also keep records of risk management associated with confined spaces according to Section 66(3). However, such record should be in writing. For the purpose of electrical equipments and installations, the record shall be carried out b a competent person with the help of electrical equipment which has been supplied with electricity involving an electrical socket. However, it is important that such testing procedure must be carried out in an environment where the risk of damage is low and the persons carrying on the record is not affected in any way. The management of the Naja Group of Colleges should hire an individual who shall be concerned with the control of plant in order to keep records of inspections, maintenance and other safety measures. The person concerned with the supply of prohibited and hazardous chemical must keep the records which includes the name of the substance as well as the quantity supplied. In this regard, it is noteworthy to mention here that the management of Naja Group of Colleges must hire a person who will be concerned with the task of maintain a asbestos register. The asbestos registered must be prepared by the person of the concerned management and should be kept at a safe place. It is important that the management of every organization should maintain health monitoring reports. Similarly, in case of Naja Group of Colleges, the management should undertake health monitoring reports which are related to a worker carrying out the activities of the business. However, such records should be kept confidential. Importance of monitoring, measuring and assessing the WHSMS For the purpose of monitoring, measuring and evaluating various risks and hazards associated with the workplace, it is important that the management should work according to the principles of OHSMS (Teague et al., 2014). However, two important purposes are associated with the process of monitoring and measuring (Roberts, 2014). Firstly, it is important for the part of the management to assess that whether the OHSMS is working accordingly or not. Secondly, in order to make sure that the safety and health problems have been identified properly, the identification is sent back to the OHSMS planning process with an aim of elimination. The process of identifying and tracking leading indicators are also associated with the process of monitoring, measuring and evaluating. In addition to this other important factors that are associated with the process of monitoring and measuring are inspecting workplace, testing of workplace, exposing assessments, obtaining suggestions regarding safety from employees and evaluating health assessments related to occupation. References: De Cieri, H., Shea, T., Cooper, B., Sheehan, C., Donohue, R. (2015). 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