How do Australia’s Workplace Health And Safety Procedures measure up? Well, although Australia’s Health system is ranked one of the best in the world, when it comes to workplace accidents it has some work to do. According to SafeWork Australia, in the year 2020, 182 Australian workers were killed at work. For a country that is considered very safe, this is actually a very high number of fatal accidents at work.

When compared to the 111 workers who died due to fatal injuries at their workplace in the year 2019-2020 in the UK this stat becomes quite shocking. Why? Because comparatively the UK has far more workers vs Australia. With a population of 66 million vs Australia’s 25 million, you’d expect the UK to have far more serious work accidents however this isn’t the case. This shows us that there is work to be done when it comes to health and safety procedures at work. 

Many fatal accidents are just that – accidents. They are largely unavoidable and happen as a fluke. However, there are some that occur due to negligence or complacency. In this article we’re looking at how businesses can tighten up their procedures to stop workplace accidents from happening, with the top procedures that businesses forget about.

Workplace Safety Inductions

Picture the scene. A new employee starts at work, who comes highly recommended from a friend or colleague. You’re sure that he has all of the necessary safety knowledge to get started on your site. He’s pretty much ready to get started, and assures you that he’s fine to get cracking without a boring safety induction. The project is behind schedule and it would be really handy to skip a full workplace safety induction, as you’re confident that he will be fine.

Would you let him get started? Often the answer is yes. However, the answer should be a resounding NO. Workplace safety inductions are essential, and should never be skipped. You can streamline them with online software that helps you manage safety on the go, but never never forget to get it done.

Ongoing training

How often do things change in a workplace? Very often!

This is why the safety training needs to be ongoing, and relative to your workplace. What is true one month may change the next, and only with a system that allows quick and effective knowledge sharing can you be sure that your team is fully protected.

One of the biggest mistakes businesses make is getting workplace safety signed off and then ignoring it for 6 months to a year. This is where accidents can happen, so ongoing training is a must!

Procrastinating an audit

Often we’ll ask businesses when they carried out their last safety audit, and often the answer is ‘never’. This is a major mistake, as audits offer an effective way to keep on top of your safety processes, manage data and find out how efficient your processes are. They serve as a great way to stop and reflect on what is working and what is not working, and get the team onboard with the changes. 

Procrastinating an audit is one of the quickest ways to encourage accidents on your site, as without a full view of how things are operating, you can’t be sure what’s going wrong.

Not monitoring overwork

How many times have people rocked up to your site and got ready to get on the tools, and you’ve looked at them and thought “you haven’t slept”? When people are operating machinery, working with heights, or dealing with physical labour where risk is involved, they should not be working if they are tired, overworked or ill.

Taking this into account will have a massive effect on how many accidents occur on your site. We’re not saying that people need to always call in sick if they’re a bit tired, but creating a culture of taking care of yourself and monitoring health should definitely be encouraged.

Not having an effective back to work plan

In the unfortunate instance of an incident occurring on your site, you need to ensure that a full back to work plan is in place. Often businesses will neglect this aspect of workplace safety and assume that if someone is ready to come back to work that they are good to go. This is not always the case.

Without a proper back to work plan, the injured employee may push too hard too soon and cause even more damage. Easing them back in slowly is a must, and injury management software helps to aid that process.

OHS Software For Your Business

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