OHS Risk Management and Consultation

OHS risk management and consultation

Risk management is a process involving four major steps:

Identifying hazards
Assessing the risks of hazards
Controlling hazards
Reviewing control measures.

When followed,these steps will assist in preventing the likelihood of an incident occurring and prevent or limit any consequences such as death, serious injury, minor injuries or damage to plant or property.

The four-step risk management process

The risk management process must be carried out within each phase of managing an event including:

venue hand-over (at the beginning and end of the event)
bumpin
event operations
bumpout.

The process applies to all types of event risks, including safety, and must ensure at each phase that:

hazards are identified
risks are assessed in terms of likelihood and consequence
risks are assessed based on the controls currently in place and the adequacy of those controls
risks are then evaluated against the risk acceptability criteria
new controls are determined
each risk is re-assessed in terms of likelihood and consequence to determine if there is a change
procedures associated with controlling risks and hazards are developed and communicated.

During these phases different hazards, risks and potential incidents can occur which may impact on potential liabilities. It is important to identify these safety issues and hazards especially in regards to responsibilities of duty of care.

To ensure that the risk management process has been conducted appropriately within all stages, national and state OHS authorities (eg WorkCover) have produced guidance material to assist workplaces to understand and apply their OHS legal responsibilities. These guidelines are called:

standards
codes of practice
guidance notes.

State and territory-based codes of practice and guidelines can be located through the state and territory OHS authorities.

These documents are helpful in providing information on industry-specific and general risk management issues within the workplace. It is also important to note that some standards and codes of practice are required to be used by law. If this is the case, reference will be made to the standard or code of practice within the state/territory’s OHS legislation.

Several standards and/or codes of practice are usually required when managing OHS risks within an event environment.

Consultation

Employers are required to consult with their employees on OHS issues which affect their safety at work. This means that in every step of the risk management process consultation must take place between the employer (who is represented by managers and supervisors within the workplace) and the employees (who may be represented by individual employees, all employees of a work group or an elected employee representative of a work group or work area). Consultation is a proactive process and must take place where the health, safety or wellbeing of staff or others at a workplace may be affected by an OHS issue.

This type of consultation is important in ensuring that all hazards have been identified and in determining the most effective methods to eliminate or control work environment hazards and risks.

OHS consultation arrangements are set out in the each state’s/territory’s OHS legislation. While these pieces of legislation differ in their consultation requirements, the following is an overview of the recognised consultation arrangements:

OHS consultation committee
OHS representatives
Workplace Health and Safety Officer
other agreed arrangements.

OHS committees and representatives

The establishment of OHS consultation committees and OHS representatives in the workplace are to provide a mechanism for ensuring employees have the opportunity to be consulted on OHS issues. OHS committees are made up of employer representatives (these representatives are chosen by the employer) and employee representatives (these representatives are democratically elected by employees from the work group in which the elected representative operates).

Workplace Health and Safety Officer

A Workplace Health and Safety Officer is trained and engaged to provide expert advice on OHS issues and to identify health and safety hazards and help implement risk assessments in the workplace.

Other agreed arrangements

Other agreed arrangements can be:

Employees have chosen to have an industrial representatives represent them on OHS issues.
Employees in conjunction with the employer have chosen a range of other consultation methods such as:

– regular work group meetings

– briefings or daily talks (usually 10-minute talks at the beginning of the work day to highlight any hazards and control measures to be considered in the days activities)

– project or task work groups

– in-house OHS publications

– job task training.

A combination of OHS consultation mechanisms as prescribed by the OHS legislation is recommended.

As legislative consultation arrangements evolve and differ from state to state, a review of your state’s/territory’s current OHS legislation is recommended.

Assess safety risks – SoloActivity 2