AU Archives - Page 7 of 14

When risks and hazards are recognised early, controls can be put in place to prevent harm to workers, visitors, and the public.

Reporting and controlling hazards/risks is a way of being proactive and helping create a safe environment for everyone to work in.

A key part of Health and Safety legislation across Australia is the need to both identify these hazards, and then manage the risks involved so they are either removed or controlled correctly. Creating a Task in the HazardCo App to report the hazard is a simple and effective way to manage this responsibility.

There are always going to be hazards and risks on construction sites; they are dynamic places. Identifying the hazards that could cause serious injury or harm to both workers’ health and safety helps manage risk as the project moves along and helps those who manage the jobs plan for them better in the future.

For example:

The concrete pumping truck has a blockage on-site, and the team decides to try and rectify the blockage whilst other workers are in close proximity. Joe is aware of the hazards and risks of clearing blockages under high pressure, and that someone could get seriously injured if things go wrong. He recommends that the concrete pumping team stop and do it away from other workers in a safe location. Because no incident or near miss occurred of anyone getting or nearly getting hurt, Joe logs this hazard as a Task in the HazardCo App.

The company reviews all the tasks that have been logged for the project and sees Joe’s reported hazard. With new knowledge of the dangers involved and the controls used to manage the risks of concrete truck blockages. The company decides to use those controls on all sites going forward.

Hazard reporting is an effective and ongoing way for workers to raise concerns or suggest improvements on a day-to-day basis.

How hazards differ from near misses:

Hazard: something could occur.

Near Miss: something did occur but there was no harm caused.

Hazard example:

Joe notices an extension cable has been badly damaged and is still plugged in. He turns off the power and removes the cable from services and logs it as a Task in the HazardCo App before someone could get hurt.

Reporting hazards as a Task in the HazardCo App helps with:

being proactive by controlling risk before it turns into an incident
getting workers involved in managing site safety
identifying and reporting hazards when completing risk assessments and site reviews on-site brings attention to the hazards that need addressing by assigning action and priority to the right team member, and then being able to track progress until the hazard is sorted.

Near miss example:

Joe sees a fellow worker about to roll up a badly damaged extension cord whilst it is still plugged in, he immediately stops the worker before he could have got hurt. Turns off the power and removes the cable from service and logs a near miss as an Incident in the HazardCo App.

Reporting a near miss helps with:

recording incidents that nearly or could have caused harm
shows how well or not controls are working
identifying if too many similar near misses are happening which could indicate that you have an issue that needs controlling

What’s Contractor management?

Contractor Management is simply ensuring your contractors are competent, qualified, licenced and inducted before visiting your site.

How does it apply to me?

If you own a building company, chances are you’re the Principal Contractor of the building site. This means it’s your responsibility to check that all contractors meet the requirements to work on your project. This involves making sure everyone is appropriately licenced, competent and compliant before jumping into any work on-site.

It’s also vital to closely observe contractors, especially anyone unfamiliar with your site, to make sure work is conducted safely.

Digitally documenting everything is the easiest way to avoid landing in hot water over lost paperwork or abandoned inductions.

Here’s what you should check:

Check company info annually

ABN and company details
Insurance (work cover, public liability and income protection)
What’s their current health and safety policy?
Can they prove they follow good processes?

Induction of workers

Check white cards are current, as well as any other trade qualifications or licence
Have they read and agreed to the site specific safety plan?
Have they been made aware of any hazards on-site?
Are they bringing any hazards on-site?

On-site health and safety

As a general benchmark, we recommend these steps to stay up to date:

Start off on the right foot with a Risk Assessment prior to starting a new task or activity: Contractors can check that the work area / site is safe and any new hazards are identified and managed.
Complete a SWMS before performing high-risk construction work: Contractors completing a SWMS may need to provide a copy to the Principal Contractor before starting work.
Consult and communicate with a Toolbox meeting once a week/fortnight: Share and capture what’s happening on-site, including hazards, incidents and corrective actions with workers and contractors.
Report all incidents as they happen, including near misses: Reporting and investigating incidents helps you take action to minimise the chance of it happening again.
Check your vehicle once a month: Check when your service is due, check the emergency equipment such as the first aid kit and fire extinguisher and the condition of the vehicle.
Review and monitor: Regularly take stock of your site or work area by completing a Site Review.

How to keep track of it all

When you’ve got a lot of contractors coming and going, it can turn into a bit of a headache trying to stay on top of checking all these documents. We’ve created a simple, automated system to nail the pre-qualification of your contractors before you begin working with them, to reduce the risk to your business.

Find out more about HazardCo’s Pre-Qualification Tools here

An important part of ensuring a healthy and safe environment for everyone on-site is to have effective contractor selection and management. The following key steps should be followed by the Principal Contractor:

Scope

Consider health and safety risks prior to selecting contractors
Discuss the project with potential contractors to make sure they are capable
Document the process and store it in the HazardCo Hub

Prequalify

Ensure prospective contractors have effective health and safety procedures in place
Keep records of contractors’ prequalification
Select the contractors based on prequalification outcome and any other factors including availability, skills, etc

Appoint

Create a Project in the HazardCo Hub, which creates a Site Specific Safety Plan, QR code, and Hazard Board. Share the information with contractors.
Ensure induction expectations are understood by all workers, contractors, and visitors.
Ensure all contractors have reviewed and agreement is reached and documented.

Monitor and Review

Regular communication regarding health and safety performance (e.g. Toolbox Meetings, Site Reviews, Site Inductions, etc.)
Investigate any incidents and follow up on any outstanding issues.
Regular review during the project lifecycle (e.g. Site Reviews)

Post contract review – It’s good practice to review the performance of your contractors at the end of the project.

Stay on top of these checks with an automated system.

Find out more about HazardCo’s Pre-Qualification Tools here

With every new contractor you bring on board, remember to tick these boxes to make sure they are going to hit the ground running when it comes to health and safety on-site. It’s your responsibility as the principal contractor to make sure these checks and balances are in place.

Pre-qualify the contracting company once a year

ABN number and company details
Insurance (work cover / income protection / public liability)
A health and safety policy and evidence they follow good processes

There are lots of different ways you can check their health and safety processes. A policy is a good place to start, as well as examples of what they will do on-site if they have an incident and how they will record toolbox talks. You should also ask for an example SWMS for any high-risk construction work they will do.

Induction of the worker

White card
Trade qualifications and experience
High Risk Work License

We recommend checking these items before they come on-site so you don’t forget. Tip: Ask for a photograph of the items for your records.

On-site induction of the worker

Have they read and agreed to the site specific safety plan?
Have they been made aware of any hazards on-site?
Are they bringing any hazards on-site?

The on-site induction is your opportunity to set expectations of how you expect the contractor to participate in risk identification and management. New workers are at a greater risk of injuring themself than your existing crew so a good induction is vital in avoiding injuries and downtime.

Stay on top these checks with an automated system
Get peace of mind your contractors are good to go, with an automated system to pre-qualify your contractors, check insurance, trade qualifications and more. Because it’s automated, you won’t have to chase contractors for outstanding documents, and you’ll even get a notification if someone scans-in who hasn’t been approved.

Find out more about HazardCo’s Pre-Qualification solution here.

There are a lot of things to keep in mind when setting up Health and Safety on your construction site that it can seem overwhelming. Use this guide as a tool to understand what you need to do from start to end of your build.

Contractor Management
Your obligations as the principal contractor are pretty straightforward. First, you need to make sure contractors have the right skills and experience to do the job, and second, you need to make sure they are going to carry out the work safely. Once they are on board, you also need to monitor if the contractor is following good health and safety practices on-site.

Collecting evidence of this process is important so we recommend putting a system in place so nothing falls through the cracks.

To understand how your contractors manage their Health and Safety it’s important that you talk to your contractors and check that they can show a commitment to keeping workers and visitors safe. This can be demonstrated through clear procedures outlined in their Health and Safety documents, as well as evidence of risk assessments, monitoring work activities, emergency management etc.

The following areas should be included in their Health and Safety Procedures:

Hazards and risks
Training and competency
Emergencies and incidents
Hazardous substances
Health monitoring
Sharing information with workers
Plant, machinery, and equipment

Find out more about HazardCo’s Pre-Qualification Tools here

Setting Up Your Build
When you start a new build, it is important that health and safety is considered and communicated with everyone coming onto site. If this is created at the beginning of your build, and clear direction is provided and shared, it helps to create and foster good safety practices on-site. With HazardCo it’s easy to set up your site by creating a project in the Hub, all you need to do is:

Provide specific site address details
Add in general information about the project
Identify the emergency procedures that will be put in place on-site
Identify the site hazards and controls that will be used to manage the risks
Choose the contractors that you will be using for the project
The SSSP will be sent automatically to those involved and will advise them to use the site-specific QR code to complete a Site Induction when they arrive on-site and scan in/out each day.

We recommend that before the project starts, you should think about setting up site fencing, emergency equipment, toilets, handwashing facilities. Make sure that you set up your HazardCo Hazard Board with the site-specific QR code at the entrance of the build, along with the mandatory government COVID Tracing App QR code.

During Your Build

Update the HazardCo Hazard Board with any new hazards on-site, and encourage contractors to do the same too
Use the site-specific QR Code on the HazardCo Hazard Board to get your workers to complete a digital site induction when they arrive on-site for the first time and scan in/out of site each day .This helps to identify who is on-site, and when
Workers should complete a Risk Assessment on the HazardCo App prior to starting work to make sure their work area is safe and the risks are being managed
Monitor works occurring on-site using the Site Review feature on the HazardCo App
For high risk construction work, use the SWMS feature in the HazardCo App. Ensure everyone involved is consulted during the preparation of the SWMS and have read, understood, and will follow the directions provided
Share and capture what’s happening on-site, and upcoming works with workers through the Toolbox Meeting feature on the HazardCo App
Record incidents on-site using the HazardCo App. Any incident, illness or near-miss can be recorded. Check out the HazardCo Hub for your Incident Register
Call our expert Advisory team on 1800 954 702 for any health and safety advice

Health and Safety Evidence
Documentation is a key way of showing that Health and Safety is active on-site and provides evidence in areas like incident investigations and learnings that are shared from these. This can be in either digital or physical format. Use the HazardCo tools on the App and Hub for all your H&S needs.

If you’re not the principal contractor on-site
We recommend that you use the HazardCo App and Hub to manage your on-site health and safety. At the beginning of each day, complete a Risk Assessment on the HazardCo App. This will help identify that the work area is safe and ensure that you have the correct controls in place for common construction hazards.

Remember to use the HazardCo App to report any incidents or near misses on your site. This will notify the HazardCo Advisory Team and we will help guide you through the next steps.

During your job:

Complete a Risk Assessment on the HazardCo App prior to starting work to make sure their work area is safe and the risks are being managed
For high risk construction work, make sure that you have read, understood and will follow the directions provided in the SWMS completed by the builder
Share and capture what’s happening on-site through the Toolbox Meeting feature on the HazardCo App
Record incidents on-site using the HazardCo App. Any incident, illness or near-miss can be recorded.
Call Advisory anytime on 1800 954 702 for any health and safety advice

Don’t forget, as part of your membership, you get unlimited access to the HazardCo team.

Phone Support
The support you need from people who know their stuff.

24/7 incident support
Get expert advice from our highly qualified advisory team
Get full support for your HazardCo system from our customer service team

It’s important to us that you and your crew are kept safe. You know the drill, we’re here to help, so get in touch if there’s anything you need. You can contact us on 1800 954 702 or email info@hazardco.com.

You may have heard about the dangers of silica dust. And that it causes a progressive, irreversible, untreatable and potentially fatal disease of the lungs called silicosis.

You may know that dry sandblasting, grinding, cutting, sanding, polishing, and drilling of silica-containing materials like concrete, rock, glass, asphalt, cement and particularly engineered stone are hazardous tasks in construction. Why? Because you create silica dust that is too small to settle. It floats around undetected in the air that is breathed in by you and those around you.

WorkSafe Victoria’s free “stonemans’ screening project” diagnosed 29% of engineered stone workers with silicosis in 2019/2020, and a similar campaign in 2021 in Queensland, Australia, diagnosed 20% of engineered stone workers with silicosis – some are young, and some are without symptoms as yet!

Am I protected if I’m wearing a respirator?

Tiny silica dust particles can penetrate your respirator if you aren’t careful. Make sure your respirator has been fit-tested and isn’t worn over a beard. You must also have the correct filters, as Silica dust is 100 times smaller than sand and can penetrate some filters.

Prevention sounds like a better option! What steps can I take?

Step 1: Understand what happens when you inhale silica dust.

Knowledge will empower you to make wise choices:

Watch the two-minute video here.
Thankfully your lungs have built-in traps that catch most impurities and dust. The nose, windpipe and air tubes are lined with mucus membranes. Dust that was not sneezed out, sticks to the mucus and is coughed out, spatted out or swallowed.
But some respirable crystalline silica/RCS dust escapes these traps and is tiny enough to enter the deepest destination in the lungs where they cause irritation, inflammation and scar tissue formation, even after silica dust exposure is stopped. Widespread, ongoing scar tissue formation reduces the surface area that is left for gas exchange, reducing your oxygen levels.

Step 2: Know the silica content of your construction materials and substitute for less hazardous materials!

The higher the silica content of the material, the more silica dust is created. For instance the extremely high silica content of engineered stone causes “accelerated silicosis”.
Stop exposure: the Australian Government has an engineered stone ban. Strict rules now apply if you need to work with already installed engineered stone.
Lessen exposure: substitute high-silica-content materials for no/low-silica-content materials.

Examples of the silica content of some of your construction materials:
Engineered stone: up to 92%!
Fibre-cement sheeting: 5-40%.
Concrete and slate: 20-40%.
Granite/natural stone: 25-60%.
Silica contents of products like cement can be found in their Safety Data Sheets (SDS).

Are there symptoms to look out for?

Damage to the lungs from silica dust and symptoms of disease may not appear for many years. Workers may not show any symptoms, even at the point of initial diagnosis, which is why prevention and health monitoring are critical. Often workers are diagnosed during routine health monitoring, as chest x-rays may show scar tissue formation even if you are without symptoms. Silicosis symptoms may include a dry cough, shortness of breath, fatigue, fever, chest pain and unexplained weight loss. Silicosis also increases your risk for other conditions like lung cancer, chronic bronchitis, kidney disease and some auto-immune diseases.

What if I’m experiencing some of these symptoms?

Tell your doctor about your current or previous exposure to silica dust. To rule out silicosis, respiratory questionnaires, lung function tests, chest X-rays and CT scans may be required.

Why is health monitoring important?

Early detection of silicosis, before symptoms develop, can motivate you to stop further exposure, and thereby improve your health outcome.

How do I organise health monitoring?

If you were exposed to silica dust currently or in the past, even if you wore respirators and even if you have no symptoms, you need routine health monitoring. Talk to your employer. Tell your doctor about your exposure. Engineered stone workers must see specialist occupational health doctors. Early detection is most important!

Treatment

Treatment is limited to relieving symptoms. For instance, oxygen therapy and bronchodilators will allow you to breathe more easily. Advanced silicosis requires lung transplants.

More Information on how to protect yourself from the risk of inhaling silica dust:

It is important to understand that depending on the State/Territory you are working in, there are very likely specific requirements you need to meet to ensure you are appropriately managing the risks. The state regulators have plenty of information available to learn more. We have provided a few key links below for you:

Call 1800 954 702 or email info@hazardco.com to get in touch with the HazardCo team.

Even if you are self-employed you still carry the same duties under the legislation as the main contractor.

If a contractor, in turn, engages other businesses then they too must assume some of the responsibility for their work. A contractor is most likely to have the greatest influence and control of their own work activities and workers (or contractors).

There should be a way of recording your planning and the ways in which you share this information. All businesses should have access to information to keep themselves or their workers safe.

Your primary duty remains to prevent harm arising from your work. Identify risks that could arise and share information between relevant parties.

The following key steps should be followed by contractors:

Scope

Engage with the main contractor to identify risks
If engaging your own contractors share information relating to risks, safety plans and expectations

Prequalify

Provide the main contractor with evidence to demonstrate your health and safety procedures eg Task Analysis, Safe Work Method Statements, Training Registers
If engaging contractors of your own, prequalify their procedures. Make sure you are happy with how safely they will work.
Find out more about HazardCo’s Pre-Qualification Tools here, or get in touch with the team to find out if it’s right for you.

Select

If engaging your own contractors, select them based Select the contractors based on prequalification outcome and any other factors including availability, skills etc.

Appoint

Complete risk assessments (e.g. Risk Assessment on the HazardCo App, Task Analysis or other risk management plans).
Agree these with your workers and other businesses

Monitor

Complete Risk Assessments/Site inspections/Observations at the start of the day to make the work area is safe to work in
Hold regular toolbox meeting, so all workers are aware of safety expectations, share this with other contractors on-site where they are affected by your work
Investigate any incidents and share the findings with the team and the main contractor

Review

Review health and safety performance with your own workers and contractors
If engaging contractors, review during the project and post-project review

Working along other businesses is a natural part of residential construction. Everyone on-site has a duty to open up the lines of communication and look out for each other.

Businesses (PCBUs) that work together will often share health and safety duties in relation to work done. Businesses have a legal duty to consult, cooperate with, and coordinate activities with all other businesses they share overlapping duties with.

What does this mean and how can you ensure that people are not harmed, and you are complying with your legal obligations? Here are some expectations:

Work with designers to reduce risks
Set clear health and safety expectations and incorporate these into your agreements with contractors
Ensure contractors have appropriate health and safety procedures in place
Prepare a Site Safety Plan for the job and share with all workers and contractors
Establish health and safety reporting requirements with your contractor. A great tool for this is to use the HazardCo App to complete Risk Assessments, Incident Reports and more.
Ensure site inductions take place. Coordinate and communicate site rules and procedures to everyone who accesses the work site, this can be done via the HazardCo App by scanning the QR code located on your Hazard Board.
Set up clear requirements for information sharing for the duration of the project
Ensure that there is effective communication between all parties (e.g. Toolbox Meetings through the HazardCo App)
Monitor your workers and/or contractors you hire

The following key steps should be followed by Principal Contractor:

Scope

Consider health and safety risks prior to selecting contractors.
Discuss the project with potential contractors to make sure they are capable.
Document the process and store in the HazardCo Hub.

Prequalify

Ensure prospective contractors have effective health and safety procedures in place.
Keep records of contractors’ prequalification.
Get peace of mind your contractors are good to go, with an automated system to pre-qualify your contractors, check insurance, trade qualifications and more with HazardCo’s Pre-Qualification Tools. Find out more here, or get in touch with the team to find out if it’s right for you.

Select

Select the contractors based on prequalification outcome and any other factors including availability, skills etc.

Appoint

Create a Project in the HazardCo Hub, which creates a Site Specific Safety Plan, QR code and Hazard Board. Share the information with contractors.
Ensure induction expectations are understood by all workers, contractors and visitors.
Ensure all contractors have reviewed the information and agreement is reached and documented.

Monitor

Regular communication regarding health and safety performance (e.g. toolbox meetings, site reviews, site inductions etc.)
Investigate any incidents and follow up on any outstanding issues.
Regular review during the assignment (e.g. Site Reviews)

Review

Post contract review – It’s good practice to review the performance of your contractors at the end of the project. Look back at areas that were monitored during the project such as communication, incidents, Site Reviews, etc.

Working along other businesses is a natural part of residential construction. Everyone on-site has a duty to open up the lines of communication and look out for each other.

You can read more about contractor management and overlapping duties here or if you have any questions about working with other businesses on-site, give our expert Advisory Team a call on 1800 954 702.

What is Contractor Management?
“Contractor management” is a WHS / OHS term used by building companies. It’s referring to the process of checking if your contractors are competent and work safely.

As a building company, what do I need to do?
Your obligations as the principal contractor are pretty straightforward. First, you need to make sure contractors have the right skills and experience to do the job, and second, you need to make sure they are going to carry out the work safely. Once they are on board, you also need to monitor if the contractor is following good health and safety practices on-site.

Collecting evidence of this process is important so we recommend putting a system in place so nothing falls through the cracks.

What you should be asking your contractors for:

Pre-qualification company checks once a year:

ABN number and company details
Insurance (work cover / income protection / public liability)
A health and safety policy and evidence they follow good processes

Pre-site induction of workers:

White card
Trade qualifications and experience
High Risk Work License

On-site induction of workers:

Have they read and agreed to the site specific safety plan?
Have they been made aware of any hazards on-site?
Are they bringing any hazards on-site?

On-site health and safety:
As a yardstick, good health and safety on-site would be your contractor completing at least two Toolbox Meetings and four Risk Assessments a month plus a SWMS any time high-risk construction work is carried out.

How to stay on top of all these checks:

Stay on top of these checks with an automated system.
Get peace of mind your contractors are good to go, with an automated system to pre-qualify your contractors, check insurance, trade qualifications and more. Because it’s automated, you won’t have to chase contractors for outstanding documents, and you’ll even get a notification if someone scans-in who hasn’t been approved.

Find out more about HazardCo’s Pre-Qualification Tools here, or get in touch with the team by giving us a call on 1800 954 702 or email info@hazardco.com

We’re pleased to announce our partnership with Procore, a digital large-scale construction management software solution.

This strategic partnership brings together two leading systems, as construction companies across Australia and New Zealand are increasingly adopting on-site technology to ease their administrative burden and work more efficiently.

We make health and safety simple, giving more than 10,000 companies the confidence they are keeping their team and their business safe, while reducing the time they spend on paperwork. Our system provides guided digital tools as well as incident support and health and safety advice when it is needed. We’re most well known for our simple and effective site induction and scan-in solution.

“We’re pleased to be able to integrate Procore with our unique site induction and scan-in solution, making it faster and easier than ever for Procore customers to know who is on-site, and when,” said Nick Halley, Head of Product at HazardCo. “Members receive a hazard board with a unique QR code for their site fence, and everyone uses the free app to scan into site, induct themselves and accept the safety plan, with H&S docs seamlessly flowing back into Procore.”

“Our goal is to make health and safety simple. This exciting partnership between HazardCo and Procore connects construction management and health and safety together, giving building companies an out-of-the box digital WHS system that seamlessly connects with their existing workflows,” said Iain Dixon, Chief Executive at HazardCo.

He concludes, “we regularly speak to builders that are passionate about building scalable and efficient processes for their business, but health and safety continues to be a very manual and paper-heavy activity for them. There are large gains to be made by digitizing health and safety, with HazardCo members telling us they have halved the time they spend on WHS admin using our simple system. This partnership will make it easier for building companies to streamline their processes and give them the confidence they are on top of their health and safety requirements.”