OHS Incident Reporting Meets Australia's New WHS Laws
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by: incidentreportt
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Word Count: 432
Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 Time: 10:56 PM
Perhaps one of the most significant inclusions in Australia’s new WHS Laws that come into effect in January 2012 is the placement of responsibility on an organisation’s executive leadership. That is to say, everyone from the CEO down can be legally held responsible for incidents that occur as a result of poor safety management. The key issue here lies in the idea of attaining awareness at all levels.
OHS Incident Reporting plays a crucial role in a company’s ability to meet and demonstrate compliance with the new WHS Laws, namely that, “All incidents require a notification.” And “All officers will have an obligation to verify the business’s compliance under the WHS act.”
The fact is that most companies simply don’t have an OHS Incident Reporting system in place that enables simple notification of all incidents. They are usually steeped in mountains of paperwork and a labour-intensive system that usually results in many incidents, particularly minor ones, going unreported altogether. Generally, the simpler the OHS incident reporting system is, the more likely incidents are to be notified.
Simplicity does not mean compromise
But robustness should not be sacrificed for simplicity. When involving executive level employees in the OHS incident reporting cycle, it is important that the system has built-in features that enable automatic reporting, so that your company can demonstrate that all key people – those who will ultimately be held responsible for an incident – are kept in the loop.
So there are a number of features you should insist on when automating your OHS incident reporting system:
Simplicity: Make sure the user-interface uses intuitive, recognizable features and follows a logical process that can be understood by anyone reporting an incident
Automatic Notification: Your OHS incident reporting system should automatically email key people when an incident is reported and then at every significant step during the reporting cycle
Investigation Feature: Your system should assign investigators who then need to report on causes of the incident and record it in the system.
Prevention: Your OHS incident reporting system should also align corrective actions with an incident before the cycle can be closed out to help ensure that the incident won’t happen again
Reports: Comprehensive graphical reports are an essential part of any successful OHS incident reporting system. This is one of the greatest features of an automated system and will be one of your best tools for demonstrating compliance!
Your ability to demonstrate that all key people at every level have been actively involved in maintaining a robust OHS incident reporting system, you can more easily prove your company’s compliance with WHS Laws.
About the Author
Every company is different - different organisational structure, different safety-related language. Make sure your Incident report or Risk Management Systems provides the ability to customise to your company's specifics.
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