With the introduction of new WHS Laws, most organisations will have (or should have) reviewed their Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems for compliance. For the most part, compliance is a concern for management, but what does compliance mean to your employees? As part of your business, employees play an important role in ensuring their working environment is healthy and safe.

The new WHS Laws place greater emphasis on communication and consultation and ensuring everyone knows their responsibilities as they apply to workplace health and safety. For many this can seem like a burden, additional work, apart from their main job function. It can be difficult to change learned behaviours and attitudes, particularly if there has been little consequence to those attitudes and behaviours.

Changing how your employees view workplace safety, and creating a positive safety culture can be invaluable in implementing your Occupational Health and Safety Management System and ensuring a safe and healthily workplace.

So where do you start?

1. Have a compliant, and relevant Occupational Health and Safety Management System – developed in consultation with your employees.

2. People – make sure you match the right people to the right tasks.

3. Supervisors & Managers – Training, training and more training. There cannot be enough emphasis on this point. It is essential that leadership, direction and management at ground level be competent, capable and effective. Ensure your supervisors and managers are trained in how to deal with organisational behaviour, disputes, and observing safe working behaviour.

4. Lead by example – Senior management should be strong advocates for safe working behaviour. Employees will only take workplace safety seriously if there is a strong commitment at a senior level, appropriate resources are available, and that senior management practice what they preach.

5. Start small – You don’t have to have the biggest, fanciest, and most expensive workplace safety initiative to foster safe working behaviours and attitudes. Do small things often. It will be easier to implement, monitor and review. Have a health safety and wellbeing program that incorporates compliance activities such as communication and consultation.

An example of how to create awareness about Slips, Trips & Falls, and Environmental Sustainability.

Available for download from our shop http://www.djhsafety.com.au/catalogue)

• Monthly topics
• 10 minute safety talk once a month
• E-Newsletter – email safety information to your employees
• Events – Small, interesting and easy to plan safety events i.e. First aid demo at the monthly meeting
• Notice board – Promote safety programs around the workplace

According to The Compendium of Worker’s Compensation Statistics 2009-2010 there were 127,620 serious claims accepted for workers’ compensation which involved a serious injury or disease. Serious claims involve either a death; a permanent incapacity; or a temporary incapacity requiring an absence from work of one working week or more.

As you can see from the table below (from the Compendium of Workers Compensation Statistics 2009-2010), at least 2.7% of serious claims were from repetitive movement, low muscle loading injuries. That’s around 3445 serious injuries!

Keeping in mind that those 3445 injuries were serious, at least involving one week off work – that’s a lot of lost time. How would your workplace cope if employees were off sick for a week with a repetitive strain injury?

The reality is that RSI’s can cause long term damage to a persons health, and can continue to affect someone’s performance at work even if they don’t consider the injury serious.

When typing on a computer keyboard, RSI can affect the hands, wrists and arms, with a major cause being incorrect positioning when typing. “Claw” hands are when the hands are positioned in a claw shape before typing, often with wrists resting on the desk or padded rest. This is not an ideal position to start with, but it is even worse when someone types with “claw” hands. A major problem of typing in this position is that the forearm extensor muscles are continually tense, as well as the tendons over the back of the hands and fingers. If held like this for long periods of time, the forearm muscles can tired very easily, because they are being used in a way they were not designed for, over a long period of time.

As many people have ‘smart’ phones, tablet devices, and laptops or computers at home, they are not only spending their working hours, but also their personal time, potentially at risk of serious Repetitive Strain Injuries. There is a real risk that RSI could affect someone in your workplace.

Raising this issue in your workplace, and addressing the risks is a statutory duty of care for an employer. You must ensure that employees at risk are aware of the hazard, and are trained in the safest and ergonomically correct way to use a computer keyboard.

Some suggestions for addressing the risk of RSI in your workplace are:

1. Carry out a risk assessment of the work stations.
2. Provide training and instruction to employees about the correct way to use computer keyboards, and ensure they do not have existing conditions that could worsen with keyboard use.
3. Create a safe working culture through continual awareness of RSI.
4. Monitor and review measures for preventing RSI.
5. Engage a professional to provide consultation and training.

If you are looking for resources to help deliver safety information to your employees, you can visit our our shop: http://www.djhsafety.com.au/catalogue?productId=1201 where you will find a powerpoint presentation on RSI, poster templates, newsletter templates and program activity guides. All easily downloadable tools to help you communicate safety issues to employees.

If you’re not, then you could be missing out on the additional benefits  that fostering a positive health  and safety culture could bring.

I know, “who’s got time to organise programs, events, and meetings?”. We understand that many organisations don’t have dedicated safety personnel or safety departments. Very often, someone volunteers, or gets delegated the responsibility. A good safety culture starts at the top, but it can get a bit muddy on the ground if the support is not sustained.

People are busy and safety can often fall by the way side, sometimes resulting in:

• Increased sick leave
• Increased risk of stress related illness
• Non reporting of hazards and incidents

On a more positive note, having a health, safety and wellbeing program can help make your workplace safer, encourage employees to be more aware about their health at work and at home, and give you a happy and productive working environment.

So how do you go about organising a health, safety and wellbeing program?

There are lots of options and plenty of support:

• You could give us a call. We would be happy to work with you to develop a program that suits your workplace.
• You could organise a safety committee and develop a program yourself; or
• You could visit our online shop where there are health safety and wellbeing resources, power points, program guides and templates, newsletter templates, poster templates, and program calendars.

See, it doesn’t need to be difficult. Get started today with a simple powerpoint for a staff meeting.

Download a complete powerpoint presentation on Repetitive strain injury and nutrition from our shop today. It includes 13 slides, all designed to help you deliver important health and safety topics to employees. Get it for $12.99 today.

Worksafe Victoria has provided a good information guide called: “Employing or engaging suitably qualified persons to provide health and safety advice”. You can download it directly from the Worksafe website.

In summary it identifies nine areas that should be considered when assessing if someone is “suitably qualified” to provide health and safety advice to your organisation.

These areas are:

• Knowledge
• Industry Experience
• Professional Activity
• Reputation
• Professional Association
• Communication Skills
• Technical Expertise
• OHS Legislative Understanding
• Risk Management Strategies

• How will the long periods away from home affect your family?
• How will you cope being away from you family?
• How will you keep in touch?
• Are you able to work in high-risk stressful environments?
• Do you have anxiety, depression, mental or physical disorders (high blood pressure, heart conditions etc) that could be aggravated by stress?
• Are you aware of the environmental conditions you will be working in?
• Is there just a camp or local amenities?

The list goes on, but spending some time considering the additional hazards associated with FIFO work could make the difference between enjoying a FIFO job and all the rewards that come with it, or hating it and putting unnecessary stress on you and your family.

Employers also need to be careful when selecting workers for FIFO projects. If a worker has not worked in isolated environments or worked away from home before, employers could enter a costly cycle of high staff turnover or extended periods off work for stress.

It is essential to give new FIFO workers proper information about the hazards of FIFO before they sign a contract. Provide advice and guidance to FIFO workers and their families to ensure that they know they have options and support.

For more information on FIFO Hazards and surviving FIFO, download our training Powerpoint from our website.