Implementing and Monitoring WHS Policies

Implementation and monitoring WHS policies, procedures and programs to meet legislative requirements

WHS management guide

WHS policies take care of the safety and health risks of an organization. They regulate the risks and hazards control of the organization to ensure that employees are safe. The policies and policies are used to establish regulations and rules that ate used in measuring and implementing the policies in the organization. The policies and procedures are documented principles and objectives that are used in guiding the workplace in the maintenance and health and safety decision making within the organization (Grasso, 2016).

The policies are important since they demonstrate that the business has taken an initiative of addressing the safety and health obligations. They also indicate that the organization has been a concern with the set of safety and health principle. Maintaining work safety and health is important in an organization because its main objective is imparting the duty of care in the organization. Therefore, it is important to communicate information that is related to procedures and policies of WHS to the organization, WHS training to ensure that employees are aware of the policies, hazard identification and management of risk, controlling measures and WHS standard maintenance.

Work health and safety management guide

A policy statement is important to communicate the WHS policies and ensure that the organization understands the importance of the policies and procedures. This will also enable the management to be updated about the WHS policies and their role in the organization. The employees should be able to access the procedures through the intranet sites in the organization and also through the notice boards in writing to provide certainty and clarity at the workplace to set out the role of the health and safety procedures.  It is important to conduct a disciplinary action that will be effective to the employees.  The organization may conduct disciplinary and counseling procedures for the employees. Counseling procedures will involve assigning workers for supervision. After supervision, it will be important to have a bargaining agreement of the rules in a consistent and fair manner. The disciplinary procedures include evaluation, warning, and notification suspension then termination.

The election of the health and safety representative will follow the WHS act. This is whereby all the workers will be informed of the elections and nominations processes being held for the representatives. Workers will nominate their members who will then be voted in the Health and safety committee. Their roles will be defined by the WHS acts for the workgroup. Fire and emergency procedures will involve raising the alarm and ensuring that call fire and rescue service has been established. On hearing the alarm, the evacuation procedures will be implemented to ensure that the employee’s exit. Ensuring that the firefighting types of equipment are available and that the fire safety items have been maintained and checked for fire risks. Hazard reporting in the workplace will be carried out through a verbal report and raising issues and reporting to the health and safety representatives. 

A hazard report form will also be utilized to ensure that suitable action has been taken. Evaluation of the existing safety management and risk management system is an important way of identifying the new hazards and enhancing better control activities (Dwyer, and Hopwood, 2013). Implementing and monitoring workplace security and safety health practices will also facilitate identification of inadequacies in the existing system of risk control. Incident reporting in the organization that will be broadly disseminated may be safety newsletters that will enhance the organizational experience from the incidents and improve safety in the organization. An effective system for record management is important for record keeping. These records may be done in writing that will include an explanation of the record that has to be kept in the right time frame.

Training and awareness programs on WHS policies will be an effective method of ensuring employees have up to date information about work health safety policies and procedures (Hughes and Ferrett, 2011). Committee meetings bring together the experiences of employees which will be utilized by the organization to check responsiveness and correction as needed by the actions. Representatives may draw a safety action or matter that will promote the goodwill of safety and health requirements through constructive and meaningful communication between the health safety representatives. 

Recommendations

To ensure that adequate training of the safety policies and procedures, it is important to structure mentoring and coaching sessions and programs. These include inductions and health safety advisory services that will develop solutions to WHS issues. The organization can conduct short courses, programs and mentoring for the group of workers to enhance training. Through conducting inspections on the operations and establishing hazard assessment and identification, programs will enable spot hazards in the organization (Officer,2005). A hazard identification checklist after risk assessment. This list will give general guidance on the possible workplace safety and health hazards. It will cover different types of hazards including physical, chemical and biological hazards. The job safety analysis will be carried out by the supervisor through job safety check forms to check on the performance for safety checking.

Conclusion

 Risk controls measures may involve reducing the exposure to potential hazards, facilitating a risk control program and legislative requirements in the workplace. The organization will require a risk control plan that will involve some risk management process. This will include risk identification, assessment, risk evaluation, risk mitigation and a contingency plan for effective control measure.

References

Grasso, M. (2016). Work health and safety resources and advice.

Dwyer, J., & Hopwood, N. (2013). Management strategies and skills (Vol. 10, p. 240). In Australia by McGraw-Hill Education (Australia) Pty Ltd Level 2, 82 Waterloo Road, North Ryde NSW 2113.

Officer, R. (2005). Work Health and Safety Policy.

Hughes, P., & Ferrett, E. (2011). Introduction to health and safety at work. Routledge.