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Having workers engaged in work health and safety will help your business be a healthier and safer place for everyone, and performance and productivity increases. It’s a win-win!

Understanding your health and safety requirements to your workers

Under the Health & Safety at work Act (HSWA), businesses have a duty to engage with workers and enable them to participate in improving health and safety. The business must:

• Ensure that workers’ views on health and safety matters are asked for and considered (within reason), and 
• Have clear, effective, and on-going ways for workers to suggest improvements or raise concerns on a regular basis.

Remember that your subbies are also considered your workers when they are working for you.

Engagement

Together with your workers, you can determine the best way to meet these requirements. What is reasonable and practicable will depend on your workers’ views and needs, the size of your business, and the nature of its risks.

Businesses must:

• Share information about health and safety
• Allow your workers time to think about these issues
• Give your workers a chance to:
  • Share their thoughts and raise health and safety concerns, and 
  • Let them be part of the decision-making process
• Consider and listen to what your workers have to say
• Tell them about the outcomes promptly in a timely way

When is engagement required?
You will need to engage and consult with workers who are directly affected by a matter relating to health and safety. This includes when:

• Hazards are identified and assessed
• Making decisions about:
  • Addressing risks
  • The suitability of worksite facilities e.g toilets, hand washing, drinking water
  • Monitoring worker health and work conditions
  • Providing information and training to workers
  • Procedures for resolving work health and safety issues
• Proposing changes that may affect the health and safety of workers

Worker Participation

It’s important to have meaningful and effective health and safety talks. It’s good for people and for business. This doesn’t mean hour-long talks or lots of documentation, it’s simply about approaching H&S with the right attitude and aiming to get everyone involved.

HazardCo makes it even simpler to do this with our ‘Toolbox Meeting’ feature on our HazardCo App – handy for making sure everyone on-site is keeping on top of what’s going on.

You can also check out the health and safety at work strategy for worker engagement, participation, and representation here.

If you need a hand getting started or would like more information, get in touch with the friendly HazardCo team today.