5 Tips About OH&S Standards You Need To Know
Dealing with OH&S Standards (Occupational Health & Safety) isn’t always easy. There are many different workplace safety issues that need to be handled if you want to stay in compliance with the acts, regulations, and codes of practice. So, how do you ensure that your company stays up to date on the latest information and practices so that you’re not saddled with an unexpected fine, citation, or legal struggle?
Follow these five tips for dealing with the OH&S act in your workplace.
1. Get the Right Advice
The law expects you, as an employer, to understand what health and safety needs are required of you. It’s your responsibility, but most of us don’t have the time to review every regulation or all the OH&S Standards, to make sure we’re protected. That’s where the advice of a qualified health and safety person, such as the experts at TriTech, is invaluable.
Hiring an external safety consultant is the same concept as hiring a lawyer to handle your legal affairs or an accountant to help with your finances.
A consultant can give you advice on:
– Establishing, maintaining, and improving safe system at work;
– Identifying, eliminating, and controlling workplace hazards
– Necessary actions to eliminate and reduce workplace risk
– Employee training needs
This type of advice is invaluable and can give you the help you need to protect not only your employees but your company as well.
2. Start at the Beginning
You can’t afford to skip steps that comply with OH&S standards when it comes to creating a culture of safety in your workplace. Business owners are ultimately responsible for all safety issues, so it’s vitally important that you start by writing a health and safety policy that clearly outlines your commitment to safety.
Keep your policy simple, but make sure that you include a set of objectives and specific responsibilities allocated to your managers, supervisors, and workers. These clearly written documents will act as a baseline guide for your health and safety program and will ensure that you stay in compliance even as employees come and go.
3. Identify and Control Risks
You won’t know if you comply with OH&S standards unless you understand the health and safety risks in your workplace. This includes identifying all hazards, regularly conducting inspections, analyzing incident data, and using an external auditor to inspect your business.
Once you’ve identified all the risks and hazards, start controlling them by taking care of the most dangerous risk first. Then, try to eliminate each hazard or substitute it with something safer when that is the better option. Make sure you keep a documented record of your actions to ensure that all legal requirements are met.
4. Consult Your Employees
As a business owner, making a unilateral decision for a safe workplace won’t be successful if you don’t involve your workers. Under OHS legislation, employers are required to have appropriate consultation arrangement in place. These include forums such as committees, elected representatives, and designated work groups.
You should regularly consult these groups on all safety manners to ensure that the lines of communication remain open and that effective safety measures can be established. It’s best if you schedule regular safety meetings and keep a documented record of the agreed actions that result.
5. Schedule Appropriate Training
The OH&S doesn’t care about your intentions; they care about your actions. The best-laid plans are worthless without the necessary training to see it carried out. Your workers should always be aware of all the risks, changes, and procedures involved with their job, and when necessary, they should be trained to handle specific duties related to their jobs.
Before scheduling training, make sure you take into consideration the needs of your employees culturally, linguistically, and based on your industry. And make sure that you evaluate the competency of your workers on a regular basis to determine what is required to stay operating in a safe manner. At TriTech, we offer courses on first aid, basic rescue, confined spaces, fall protection, and more.
It’s possible to transform your workplace into an OH&S standards compliant business, as long as you take it one step at a time and hire the help you need. TriTech is a locally owned company, in Grand Prairie, offering safety and training services. We can help you create a culture of safety, so you don’t have to worry about it.
TriTech Safety & Training Inc, located in Grande Prairie is in the best position to keep you up-to-date with the essential and important industry practices for preventing avoidable accidents. For more information go to https://tritechsafety.ca/courses.
