Understanding Workplace Health And Safety (WHS) Laws: Codes Of Practice, Hazard Identification, And Risk Management Essay.

1. What Is a Code of Practice?

2. Is a Code of Practice Mandatory?

3. What is a PCBU?

4. What does my organization need to do to comply with WHS laws?

What is a Code of Practice?

Code of practice refers to the standards or official rules to guide the organizational stakeholders in their workplace. It is expected that stakeholders should adhere to the code of practices. 

Code of practices can be mandatory or voluntary. Majority of the code of practices are voluntary in nature and mandatory code of practices refers to the minimum set of standards that should be adhered by the respective stakeholders. For instance, there are certain mandatory code of practices that should be followed by the passenger in traveling by air. 

According to the legal terms of the WHS laws, anyone including any individuals or business entities conducting business can be considered as Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking. They are the responsible one for conducting the business effectively. 

In order to comply with the WHS laws, it is important for the organization to setup the working environment according to the WHS standards, employing and managing the people according to the insurance and workers compensation policy, meeting the occupational safety and health guide and providing training to the workers about their obligations in maintaining workplace health and safety (Cunningham, Sinclair & Schulte, 2014). 

Safety is the role being played by the respective stakeholders as the precaution of the probable danger or risk. It can also be referred as a process of being ensuring the stakeholders safe from any probable danger (Le Coze, 2013). 

Job Safety Analysis is the process being maintained n order to identify the most potential risks or hazards and the most effective ways to mitigate those (Gopinath & Johansen, 2016). Thus, it refers to the integrated process of maintaining the job hazards along with their respective mitigation steps for the particular job operation. 

The major difference between SWMS and JSEA is the acceptability. This is due to the reason that JSEA is having acceptability across different industries in Australia in case of SWMS; they are mainly popular in the Victorian region only (Fang & Wu, 2013). Another major difference between these two terms is JSEA cover all types of workplace hazards and different business sectors, while SWMS covers only the high risk construction work. 

It is mandatory for the person conducting a business or undertaking to get meet the criterion of safe work method statement if they are involved in high risk and higher hazardous works. 

JSEA refers to the job safety and environmental analysis. This refers to the documents that are required in stating the safety process of carrying out a particular job (Zhang, Boukamp & Teizer, 2015). This also refers to the step by step process of meeting the organizational objectives without harming the environment or without causing safety concerns of the workers. 

Reasonably practicable means to the extent to which employers can identify and mitigate the risks involved with the particular job role. However, the extent is limited up to the certain limit of thought of the employers. It is up to them to determine the reasonably practicable stage. 

Yes it is important to identify the hazards under the WHS regulations. This is due to the reason that WHS regulations cover different occupational hazards and the standards to be met. Thus, it is important to identify the particular hazards and initiate the safety measures accordingly. 

Is a Code of Practice Mandatory?

Hierarchy of control refers to the process of control and safety measures initiated by the business organizations in order to regulate the risks (Chen et al., 2014). There are number of steps stated in the hierarchy of controls that will help the organizations to overcome the hazards.  

Safe work method statement refers to the document that denotes the occurrence of the high risk construction work in the particular workplace (Hale & Borys, 2013). In addition, the hazards and safety concerns that can get generated from the construction work activities are also being identified in the safe work method statement along with the measures to regulate them. 

The responsible stakeholder who will conduct the high risk construction work in the workplace should prepare the SWMS report. However, it is also suggested that the responsible stakeholder should consult with other stakeholders in the construction project. 

SWMS should have the detailed view of the high risk construction project in the report along with the measures that should be taken to overcome the hazards. In the report of SWMS, it is also reported the involved stakeholders in the project along with the probable precautions for the predictable hazards. 

In the construction work, the firsts step is identification of the hazard followed by the identification of the potential impacts of the hazards (Zhang et al., 2015). The next step is to evaluate the risks and stating the control measures for the identified hazards. The next step to built the risk assessment log and construction of the risk management process. 

Site WHS management plan refers to the plan of risk management for the risks that can get emerged on site. This is applicable for the risks that can get generated at any point of time and in workplace. Thus, site WHS management plan helps in having effective and on site risk management for the organizations. 

The site WHS management plan should include designation and details of the stakeholders responsible for the maintenance of the health and safety in the workplace. The plan will also include arrangements for meeting the safety standards in the workplace, site specific rules and regulations related to health and safety and arrangements done for the health and safety training for the involved stakeholders. 

In managing the risk in the construction project, it is important to first identify the probable risk in the workplace along with identifying the potential implications of them (Callen, Lindley & Niederhauser, 2013). Moreover, the involved stakeholders in the project should also be given training regarding the safety and health measures in the organization. 

It is important to consult with the workers about WHS under the WHS legislations due to the reason that workers are the one who will get mostly affected due to the health and safety concerns. Thus, their feedback and opinion are important for the meeting the WHS standards. 

According to the WH legislations, any subcontractors working for the commonwealth agency are to be considered as workers. Thus, they should also be treated as workers and are entitled for the worker benefits. 

What is a PCBU?

Under the WHS legislation, consultation refers to the process of effective communication between the employees and the employers. This states that the health and safety standards of the organizations should be set by the employers in consultation with the employees in more collaborative manner. 

According to the WHS legislations, white card is required and mandatory for the employee. This is due to the reason that white card is given to the workers in the high risk construction work based on the meeting and following the safety and health standards. 

According to the WHS standards, it is the duty of the workers to take care of their own safety and health. In addition, it is also the duty of the workers to take care of their peers and complying with the organizational rules and regulations regarding safety in the workplace. 

Hazard is the risk or threat that can get generated from different occupational process. 

Hazard identification is the process of determining the potential hazards in the workplace based on their chances of occurrence (Bahn, 2013). In addition, hazard assessment process is the process of evaluating the potential impact of the hazards along with the organizational effectiveness in controlling the implications.  

In identifying the workplace hazards, the first step is to initiate risk assessments in the workplace and identifying the potential risks of the workers. It is followed by evaluation of the identified risks in order to finalize the potential hazards for the organization. 

The major difference between the risk and hazard is that risk refers to the chance or probability of hazard while hazard will cause harm. For instance, there is a risk of falling from the ladder and working on ladder is one of the potential hazards. 

Hazard report form states that evaluation statement of the potential hazards in the workplace. It contains the mitigation processes and measures that should be taken by the organization in controlling the risks or eliminating it. 

Imminent danger refers to the hazards that can cause severe health concern for the workers including causing death also. Imminent dangers also refer to the hazards that cause severe impacts on an immediate basis. 

There are number of sources being identified for hazards. Biological hazard includes bacteria, virus and insects. Chemical hazard includes exposure to the chemical and toxic materials (Low et al., 2013). Physical hazard includes dealing with dangerous materials such as knife and explosives. Workplace sources include risk involved in handling heavy machinery. 

Due diligence is the steps being followed by the individuals or the business entities in investigating the contract or any documents prior to the signing of the contract (Flyvbjerg, 2013). This is important due to the reason that checking the documents prior to the signing will enable entities to overcome any misrepresentation. 

Reference

Bahn, S. (2013). Workplace hazard identification and management: The case of an underground mining operation. Safety science, 57, 129-137.

Callen, B. L., Lindley, L. C., & Niederhauser, V. P. (2013). Health risk factors associated with presenteeism in the workplace. Journal of occupational and environmental medicine, 55(11), 1312-1317.

Chen, T., Jin, Y., Qiu, X., & Chen, X. (2014). A hybrid fuzzy evaluation method for safety assessment of food-waste feed based on entropy and the analytic hierarchy process methods. Expert Systems with Applications, 41(16), 7328-7337.

Cunningham, T. R., Sinclair, R., & Schulte, P. (2014). Better understanding the small business construct to advance research on delivering workplace health and safety. Small Enterprise Research, 21(2), 148-160.

Fang, D., & Wu, H. (2013). Development of a Safety Culture Interaction (SCI) model for construction projects. Safety science, 57, 138-149.

Flyvbjerg, B. (2013). Quality control and due diligence in project management: Getting decisions right by taking the outside view. International Journal of Project Management, 31(5), 760-774.

Gopinath, V., & Johansen, K. (2016). Risk Assessment Process for Collaborative Assembly-A Job Safety Analysis Approach. In 6th CIRP Conference on Assembly Technologies and Systems (CATS) (Vol. 44, pp. 199-203). ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV.

Hale, A., & Borys, D. (2013). Working to rule or working safely? Part 2: The management of safety rules and procedures. Safety science, 55, 222-231.

Le Coze, J. C. (2013). Outlines of a sensitising model for industrial safety assessment. Safety science, 51(1), 187-201.

Low, Y., Sedykh, A., Fourches, D., Golbraikh, A., Whelan, M., Rusyn, I., & Tropsha, A. (2013). Integrative chemical–biological read-across approach for chemical hazard classification. Chemical research in toxicology, 26(8), 1199-1208.

Zhang, S., Boukamp, F., & Teizer, J. (2015). Ontology-based semantic modeling of construction safety knowledge: Towards automated safety planning for job hazard analysis (JHA). Automation in Construction, 52, 29-41.

Zhang, S., Sulankivi, K., Kiviniemi, M., Romo, I., Eastman, C. M., & Teizer, J. (2015). BIM-based fall hazard identification and prevention in construction safety planning. Safety science, 72, 31-45.