Staying Up To Date With WHS

Written by Admin on 12/08/2015. Posted in Workplace

This month, Evoke Projects will post a series of articles to help you manage your Workplace Health & Safety risks.

This month’s 4 topics will be:

• Using office ergonomics to reduce the risk of injury
• Staying up-to-date with WHS requirements
• Is your office design increasing your employees’ risk of long-term illness?
• WHS considerations for office refurbishments

This week is the second article in the series, Staying up-to-date with WHS requirements

With the broad definition of a WHS duty of care, it can be difficult knowing and staying up-to-date with what is required. Evoke Projects has compiled some useful resources to help you, with a particular focus on the office environment.

Which laws govern WHS requirements in the office?

Most states and territories have harmonised legislation, which makes it much easier for businesses that have multiple offices to manage. As well as Acts of Parliament, there are Regulations and Codes of Practice. It is a good idea to comply with Codes, even though they are not legally enforceable, because ignoring them could show disregard for your duty of care.

For the latest legislation, visit www.business.gov.au and search for ‘workplace health and safety’.

What does it mean in practice?

While some aspects of the law are clear and easy to comply with, the duty to provide a safe and healthy workplace can take you into grey areas. Comcare is the agency tasked with helping businesses comply with WHS legislation and their website has a raft of helpful information about creating healthy offices including ergonomic hazards, office layout and
office design.

Newly recognised dangers

There has been an increased focus during the last few years on the dangers of prolonged sitting in the workplace. Now that it is on the corporate radar, it is arguably part of an employer’s duty to consider ways of reducing the amount of sedentary work time. Evoke Projects will give you some office design and layout tips in our next WHS article.

Staying up-to-date with WHS

To stay up-to-date with what’s happening in the world of WHS, subscribe to industry newsletters such as Comcare’s Safety Essentials e-newsletter or visit the news section of websites such as the National Safety Council of Australia.

Safe Work Australia is another useful website.

Planning an office refurbishment?

A new office fitout gives you an opportunity to revisit your WHS procedures and design your office space so that your furniture and work processes are best practice. Fire safety and disability access are particularly important when it comes to office interior design and space planning. Evoke Projects can assist you with WHS improvements for your next office fitout, so please call us on 1300 720 692 for more information.

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