You may be one of the many strata management businesses or other businesses who care about the health and safety of your staff and have taken steps to make your workplace healthy and safe, but haven’t gotten around to adopting a formal work health and safety (“WHS”) policy as required under the Work Health & Safety Act 2011.
It is not as complicated as it might seem, particularly in light of a new and inexpensive option created by Bannermans Lawyers.
Bannermans Lawyers have created a user-friendly WHS policy, which is now available for licensed use. Key features of the policy include:
- The policy is available for use after payment of a relatively inexpensive licence fee. You will likely find that, taking your time costs into account, this is a very cost-effective option, as compared to trying to develop your own policy.
- The policy has been prepared with specific focus on strata management agency businesses and deals with the key topics which may be important to you. It includes a range of template documents and guidelines for specific topics; likely all you need to get started.
- The policy is extremely flexible and can easily be adapted to your needs. It divides broadly into two areas. Firstly, there is a policy document implementing a management structure, essentially appointment of a WHS manager and adoption of procedures and documents to address WHS issues and promote continuous improvement of your response to them. Secondly, there is a set of statements specifying requirements in relation to specific WHS topics, which can be amended or added to over time, which is broken up as follows:
Part 1: Work Health & Safety Policy
Part 2: Safety Work Statements
- Access & security.
- Emergency procedures.
- First Aid.
- Fitness for work.
- Office premises.
- Drugs, alcohol and smoking.
- Harassment & bullying.
- Contractor management.
- Dealing with aggressive people.
- Office premises work.
Part 3: Forms
- WHS meeting minutes.
- Induction checklist.
- Visitor Attendance log.
- Training attendance record.
- Staff training record.
- Hazard report form.
- Hazard register.
- Incident report form.
- Incident register
- Workplace inspection calendar.
- Workplace safety assessment.
- Equipment and activities safety assessment.
Once you have tailored it to be business, you will need to appoint a Work Health & Safety Officer, undertake an assessment of the risks and educate the team. Ideally, place the documents thereafter on your intranet for easy access.
Prepared by
Bannermans Lawyers
