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Department of Justice and Community Safety

WORKPLACE SAFETY PROGRAMS 

"Partners in Safety" Mentor Program

This program encourages larger organisations to take on a mentoring role to a selected group of smaller businesses within the same industry, to assist them with improving their level of workplace safety, whilst complying with the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS), workers compensation and injury management legislation.

The first industry chosen to participate in this program is the construction industry, and two of the major ACT construction companies – Bovis Lend Lease and Construction Control have committed themselves as mentors for the program.

The program is proposed to run over an eight-month period, and will consist of a mix of workshops, site visits and discussions with designated OHS officers from the mentor organisation. The Office of the OHS Commissioner will also be providing technical and administrative support to all participants throughout the program.

The new publication, ‘Serious about Safety’ pack, launched on the 31 October 2007, will be used by the mentees’ during the program, to help guide them through the process of improving the overall safety of their business. The Serious about Safety pack looks at practical approaches to helping businesses achieve their OHS compliance. The pack contains a number of tools to assist businesses identify what they need to do to make their workplace safer.

On completion of the program successful mentees’ will receive recognition and a certificate during the 2008 "Opt for Safety" Month.

Following are links to Letter of Invitation, Information Pack and Application form regarding the mentor program.

 

Manual Tasks Training

This program focuses on small businesses (upto 10 employees) within the retail industry whose employees are required to undertake manual tasks as part of their daily work activities.

Australian worker’s compensation statistics show that one third of all occupational injuries at work happen during manual tasks, with the retail industry identified as having a high number of manual task related injuries reported each year.

The program is being conducted in conjunction with the Coles Group, and has been designed to assist the employer and their employees performing manual tasks, to identify, access and control the risks associated with the tasks that are commonly being performed within their workplace.

The program will be conducted at a number of the larger shopping centres throughout the ACT and will commence during late February and early March 2008.

Small Business Advisory Program

This is a pilot program that will initially focus on 10 – 15 small – medium businesses across a range of industries within the ACT, and is a practical approach to assist businesses to achieve OHS compliance and best practice.

The program will incorporate the already established ‘Small Business Tool kit’ introduced by ACT WorkCover in 2003 and the ‘Serious about Safety’ program, currently being adopted and implemented by 5 other states as part of a National harmonisation approach toward guidance materials and tools.

This program has been developed specifically with the needs and limited resources of small businesses in mind, to assist them achieve their occupational health and safety, workers compensation and injury management responsibilities, by implementing effective OHS Management strategies and processes, enabling them to achieve best practice within their industry.

This program is planned to commence in early 2008.

 

OHS Safety Summit

The OHS safety summit is an inaugural event for the ACT. The summit is aimed at improving work place safety through the coordination and partnering of industry groups, unions and government in addressing the serious workplace safety risks within industries across the ACT.

The summit will encourage communication and consultation between industry groups and others involved in the field of occupational health and safety by allowing them the opportunity to discuss a range of OHS related topics ultimately aimed to improve the future of workplace safety across ACT industries. These topics include:

  • the future direction of OHS;
  • delivering greater awareness opportunities;
  • developing more effective OHS strategies and activities;
  • improving OHS safety outcomes; and
  • reducing work related injury costs to industry.

The summit is planned to take place mid 2008.

 

Further Information

For further information regarding the above programs please contact the Office of the Occupational Health and Safety Commissioner on - (02) 6205 0333.