Safe Work And The Small Business Program

Safe work and the small business program

Kim Judd

WorkCover Corporation

Adelaide

Australia

ABSTRACT

WorkCover Corporation is a safe work business and the concept of safe work is incorporated into all facets of our interactions with our customers. The development of effective safe work strategies for small businesses has been recognised as a difficult challenge worldwide. Small business in South Australia comprises 96% of the Corporation’s insured customers and is generally defined as a business with twenty or less employees. Time constraints, lack of resources and limited knowledge and expertise to implement legislation and manage workplace health and safety are the problems faced by small businesses. In 1999 the Corporation identified small business as a priority area and recognised the need for practical and relevant products suitable for them to address these issues.

The Corporation undertook an extensive program of consultation with small businesses to identify their health and safety issues, and a range of general and industry specific information products were developed as a result. These products have been tailored to meet the needs of small business in assisting them to improve their workplace health and safety.

The program also recorded a 50% response rate to the ‘Small Business Health and Safety Starter Kit’ within the first year of its introduction and maintained an 18% response rate to other occupational health and safety material. The program has seen the reinforcement of the two-way communication channel between the Corporation and small business and has facilitated the establishment of a number of small business networks and strategic partnerships.

Diploma in Dental Therapy - Adelaide University

Bachelor of Education – University of South Australia

Graduate Diploma in OHS -

Graduate Diploma in Ergonomics - La Trobe University

Graduate Diploma in Marketing (currently) – University of South Australia

Safe work and the small business program

Kim Judd

WorkCover Corporation

Adelaide

Australia

ABSTRACT

Small and medium industries (SMIs) account for 99% of all workplaces in Australia and in South Australia the number of SMIs registered with WorkCover having only one registered business location is 85% and 95% pay between $0-$500,000 annual remuneration.

The definition of a small business provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) is:

· A business employing 20 employees or less.

In addition small business typically have the following management or organisational characteristics:

· they are independently owned and operated

· they are closely controlled by owners/managers who also contribute most, if not all of the operating capital

· the principle decision making function rests with the owners/managers.

Even though small business in general incur fewer workplace injuries or illness than larger business ( and this may be due to under reporting), the injuries or illness sustained in small business are often more severe. The injures and illnesses often require long periods for a return to work and result in higher workers compensation costs.

Businesses – particularly small business – are much more likely to accept and adopt occupational health and safety initiatives, programs and solutions if they are seen to come from their industry, rather than a Government or semi-Government organisation.

How is WorkCover Corporation addressing SMIs and safe work?

Safer Industries Program www.workcover.com/safer

South Australia’s WorkCover used its extensive database to target the 14 worst performing industries.

Building construction

Commercial cleaning

Civil construction

Labour Hire

Food and drink wholesalers and retailers

Horticultural

Hospitality

Industrial machinery manufacturing

Meat

Motor trades

Motor vehicle parts manufacturing

Aged Care

Plastics manufacturing

Road transport

Industry ownership through industry committees was seen as a key factor in the prevention strategy.

WorkCover’s role in the Safer Industries Program is to facilitate, support and advise the committee.

This approach aims to facilitate cultural change by:

· engaging high risk industries in strategic partnerships

· fostering industry wide ownership of OH&S

· facilitating a strategic industry wide approach to OH&S based on best practice

· supporting industry action by providing or facilitating access to a range of OH&S services.

A key factor underpinning the SAfer Industries philosophy is the tripartite nature of the committees, involving employer, employee and government groups to ensure the committee is fully representative of the industry. Accordingly, the United Trades and Labour Council helped with providing union representation. Another important factor to be taken into consideration (in situations where the Corporation had put together more than one industry class to make the industry cluster), was to ascertain from the various sub groups if this was indeed the right mix.

Establishing the committees was a time consuming and sometimes painstaking exercise. This is not surprising considering that the membership of these representatives groups included bodies that do not normally work together. On one occasion, an existing committee with the Commercial Cleaning industry, Cleansafe, formed the basis of the SAfer Committee.

All identified stakeholders were visited and this was followed up with open forums where the SAfer Industries concept was marketed. Committees were selected from these forums with each one chaired by a member of the industry.

How are the SAfer Committees operating?

No two industry groups are alike, but all are functioning well. WorkCover provides resources (administrative and some financial) to the committees, with meetings being held at industry locations. The committees have begun developing and implementing various OH&S initiatives, and provide a valuable forum for the discussion and implementation of industry specific OH&S measures.

One of the main issues for the future will be to encourage increasing industry funding of the Committees. There has been some reluctance in this area, but as industry ownership of the strategy increases so do the opportunities for shared funding.

Each of the industry committees have agreed three year strategic plans and have developed their own web sites. They focus on the major hazards in each industry, and contain a variety of outcome measures. Already, some key OH&S initiatives have been implemented in a number of the industries. Whilst it is still premature to remark on the success of these initiatives, WorkCover is tracking industry performance in the key areas of claim numbers, incidence rate and claims costs, and all indicators for success remain strong.

Small Business Program www.workcover.com/sb/

The Small Business Program (SBP) was developed in consultation with small businesses and their representatives. Using marketing and communication strategies, the program aimed to make OHS management accessible and relevant. Before developing a program for small business it was essential to understand the nature of small business, their management style, OHS experiences and perceptions of government or semi-government assistance.

Research conducted nationally and internationally provided an understanding of the OHS issues facing small business and proposed effective strategies to engage small business in the programs offered. A common emerging issue was a lack of time, resources and expertise to manage small business and that OHS was not recognised as core business and therefore not considered a priority.

OHS management messages were tailored to address the basic needs of small business and communicated through a variety of channels. The aim was to engage small business in open two-way communication that enabled them to define their needs and to have those needs satisfied with accessible, practical, ‘how-to’ tools.

The foundation of the small business program was the implementation of a direct mail marketing campaign Face–to-face communication is preferred with small business, but limited resources to reach thousands of small businesses made this option unfeasible. The direct mail out to 30, 000 small businesses introducing the campaign and offering a free small business Health and safety Starter Kit.

Incentives were offered to encourage employers to request the kit or extra information. The most common form of response was by the reply paid device (83%) and fax (11%).

After 4 mail-outs 15,014 small businesses requested and received a kit. The outcome was a 50% response rate of small businesses actively involved in the program.

Mentoring Program www.workcover.com/safer/auto_news.html

A mentoring system matches organisations that have simple, yet effective OHS management systems with companies requiring assistance in improving their approach to OHS. The objective is to help smaller companies implement effective injury prevention systems with a company that is regarded as an organisation with sound OHS principles and practices.

The underlying principle is that “safety isn’t a secret” when it comes to saving lives.

Some of the organisations were in direct competition with each therefore a mentor was found from an organisation that wasn’t involved in that particular industry.

The program requires an organisation to have a change of culture to OHS and understand the merits of a sound OHS management systems. The evaluation of the program has found that it has been extremely successful for all parties involved and can be applied to many and varied organisations.

RISE Placement Service workcover.com/employers/empriseeligemployer.html

The RISE Program facilitates the prompt placement of workers deemed unable to return to their pre-injury employer.

Under the RISE scheme employers are able to select their own worker from a short list of suitable persons provided by the RISE Placement Service.

A RISE Placement Service Field Officer visits the workplace to assess if the injured worker is suitable for that particular workplace and also assesses the health and safety of the working environment.

The Corporation offers a financial incentive for taking on a job-ready worker who has suffered a work-related injury or illness.

The RISE program has paced 2800 workers in the first 8 years of operation, and has established strong long lasting links with a large number of small and medium industries.

Customer Centre

Small and medium industries have access to safe work information through the Corporation’s Information Officers. The officers provide a vital link with the Corporation’s customers through front line customer service as they are able to assist with:

· telephone inquiries through a toll free Customer Information Hotline

· walk in off the street and speak to staff at an Information desk

· e-mail WorkCover’s website

· external information sessions.

Conclusion

WorkCover Corporation is exploring a range of strategies to assist SMIs with their health and safety. There is a plethora of free information and resources available for SMIs however it is often under utilised because SMIs aren’t aware of its existence.

The Corporation is aware that the challenges faced by SMIs are unique and a combination of approaches must be employed to assist SMIs to become confident when dealing with health and safety in their workplace.

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