Question

You are safety site supervisor for a commercial construction company. The company employs 12 administration personnel, 18 construction personnel and 60 subcontractors. They have a fairly strong health and safety program, but are concerned about increasing back injury reports. Workers have been asked to identify and report on any inadequacies in existing risk controls relating to back injury and to the hierarchy of control.

To whom should workers report? What are the responsibilities of the HSR or HSC in terms of reporting and monitoring the results of responses? What is the hierarchy of control, how does it impact on risk controls in a situation like this, and why is important to regularly monitor and report on inadequacies?

Answer 1

The workers should report to the Safety site supervisor who is concerned with the working environment and its impact on health of workers. The employees should support their claims and incidents with enough evidences to prove it.

The WHS (Workplace health and safety) regulations requires the safety site supervisors and concerned staff of organisation to work through efficient hierarchical control for managing risks. The responsibility of HSR and HSC is to check for hazards and put effective measures at working place to reduce them to through identifying and eliminating source, substituting the substance of hazard with a more safe alternative, isolating the hazards from the people etc. The hierarchy of control will enable to rank risks as per their intensity and severity. These ranks will reflect on the risk control measures from those having highest level protection and reliability to the lowest level of protection.

It is important to use Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) shall be used if the hazards are detrimental or deteriorating for health. The appropriate control measures which will be put at place should be assessed to identify the changes that it will bring. , the senior management and concerned people should be communicated about the changes so that they can adjust and stay prepared for them. This will also ensure that enough support is received from them during implementation of safety measures. The hierarchy of control will encourage formulating safety management measure ro mitigating the risks.

It is essential to regularly monitor and report inadequacies so as to ensure and investigate that the changes introduced will sustain and bring adequate impact to make the working conditions more safe and healthy. The legal obligation of employer to protect the health and safety of employees should not possess any shortcomings regarding creating a positive health care measures. The physical handling of machines lifting of heavy weights which can miserably affect the back and make existing health condition worse requires special attention and regularly monitoring and reporting inadequacies will help overcoming the shortcomings in measures and address the problem areas.

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Thanks dear student.. Hope this helps you.. Good luck.. Rate if satisfied :)