Small businesses are the backbone of the Australian economy. At the end of the 2016-17 financial year, there were over 2 million small businesses and over 800,000 of these employed 4.8 million people. Each and every one of these 4.8 million people must have adequate training, information and instructions to perform their job safely. As a business owner, you are obligated under the Act and Regulations to provide safety and health training for all your employees.
Failure to meet your obligations could see your employees having a work-related injury, illness or fatality. The ‘it won’t happen to me’ attitude of business owners is not acceptable. As of the weekend just gone, there have already been 18 Australian workers who after a workplace incident were unfortunately killed.
It can be a complicated and confusing legislative system for small to medium-sized business to understand, with only 50% of employers believing themselves to be fully compliant. With the majority admitting they could do more to implement their safety plan, it’s evident there is still a long way to go to ensure all workers are safe.
We are here to help bridge this knowledge gap.
Safety leadership in small business
By supporting and encouraging positive workplace health and safety practices, over time this will help develop a positive safety culture in your business. This improves work health and safety, avoids costly incidents and injuries, minimises productivity disruptions and reduces overheads.
Safe Work Australia have developed five leadership principles to help you develop safety leadership practices in your small business and create a workplace culture that promotes safety.
Commit to safety
Be serious about good work health and safety. Show your commitment to safety by spending the resources needed to provide a safe and healthy working environment.
Get involved
Lead by example when it comes to safe work procedures. If employees see supervisors and managers actively involved in safety, workers are more likely to raise issues and follow safe work procedures.
Encourage participation
Think about the manner in how you speak about safety, respond to safety issues and involve others. Find a way to easily but competently train and refresh employees knowledge of good safety principles.
Make work health and safety part of your business
Make this a standard process and practice for all employees. Provide resources, ensure workers have the right equipment and ensure all staff and sufficiently trained from the beginning.
Review your performance
Once this is all in place, it’s important to regularly check systems and activities. Regularly review reports into safety performance and act on any trends you see.
Keep your business safe
There are many things to think about in order for a business to survive and succeed. Running the day-to-day, trying to save costs and making a profit are time-consuming. Health and safety may not be the number one priority over other critical factors for small business survival, however with the average cost of a workplace injury currently at $23,780 and requiring 63 days off work, (WA figures) could mean failure for your business.
Our role in your business
It’s time to think about work health and safety as a key element of your business strategy and the role of our workplace safety and mental health training solutions can have in supporting the survival of your business.
At a glance (we know you don’t have a lot of free time) here is how Tap into Safety can help.
- Our cloud-based interactive modules can be completed in under 15 minutes and are available online and via smart devices.
- You don’t need to download any special software or buy any new hardware.
- We have pre-built workplace safety training courses that you can access immediately. These include topics such as
- Falls from heights
- Scaffolding
- Warehouse
- Traffic Management
- Delivery yard
- Minor capital works
- We offer both our workplace safety training and mental health training on one platform for a combined low cost.
- We also have pre-built workplace mental health training modules that you can access immediately. These include topics such as
- Workplace bullying
- Sexual harassment
- Grief and loss
- Alcohol and depression
- You can be assured that our content is developed in consultation with industry experts.
- Employees can confidentially seek help if required
- You have immediate compliance reports at your fingertips if the WorkSafe inspector makes a visit.
- You can use the comprehensive reporting tools to predict trends and analyse data.
- You don’t have to make any changes to your induction training if you don’t wish to, just add our training modules to it by simply inserting a hyperlink.
We encourage you to think about the safety of yourself and your employees and act on your obligations to implement interactive, immersive training that is shaped by research and developed in consultation with industry experts.
Further information
Want to know more? Sign up for a software demonstration today or contact us with any questions.