Occupational Health and Safety Management Practice Leadership

This document explores the occupational health and safety management practices of Woolworths NZ and how they meet the duty requirements of HSWA 2015. It discusses their safety and rehabilitation policy, communication and training practices, utilization of lagging and leading indicators, high functioning safety committee, and formalized safety policy.

Occupational Health and
Safety management
practice leadership

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................1
Presenting health and safety management practices of the company to ensure it meets duty
requirements of HSWA 2015......................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Occupational health and safety management practice are necessary activities that an
organisation implements in its workplace with the aim of nurturing healthy and safety
environment for its employees (Armstrong and Taylor, 2020). It is mandatory for all
organisations to devise and implement various health and safety management practices in order
to meet key requirements of HSWA Act. HSWA Act, 2015 is one of health and safety legislation
that assist in managing risks by considering potential work concerned health situation and
injuries that might occur. It sets out rights, principles along with duties in context to
organisational health and safety. The main concern of the act is to provide high protection level
to workers and other at workplace. To gain information about health and safety management
practices, Woolworths NZ is the selected. It is second largest grocery entity in New Zealand. The
goal of the organisation is to provide best possible values, quality and convenience through
serving customers. It proudly owns together with operates around 180 Countdown supermarkets
in the city of New Zealand. It has around 18500 employees in the stores, processing plants,
distribution centres and many more. The report assesses occupational health and safety practices
of particular company. The practices cover essential elements of policy and planning, delivery,
monitoring and review.
MAIN BODY
Presenting health and safety management practices of the company to ensure it meets duty
requirements of HSWA 2015
Overview of company
Woolworths NZ is one of Grocery Company which was established by Picot Family in
the year 1949. It successfully operates around 184 supermarket stores, 30 stores of higher quality
supermarket and 40 convenience stores (Woolworths NZ. 2020). The company works with the
objective of serving best offerings in its stores. It has approx 18500 employees that operate its
stores successfully in different parts of country. The managers of the entity are committed
towards taking suitable measures for the purpose of protecting the health, safety addition to
wellbeing of its employees. Along with this, it also takes all its responsibilities seriously as well
as time to time review policies and practices that are concerned with protecting people from
uncertain risks, injuries or hazards at workplace. The company delivers its health and safety
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programmes in systematic and structured approach that aims in protect people from dangerous
hazards, high risks and uncertain future. The entity has commitment of providing work culture
which foster or motivate implementation of continuous improvement programs which eliminate
injuries and other illness.
HSWA 2015
Health and safety at Workplace Act, 2015 is the legislation that explains about working
safer. As per the act, it is necessary for organisation to shift their emphasis from monitoring
along with recording health and safety incidents to identifying and managing situations
proactively in order to keep its entire people safe and healthy at workplace (Bratton, 2020). The
main requirement of the act is to keep people safe from any type of harm while working in the
company. Along with this, it also helps businesses to identify that a well functioning and
properly managed health and safety practice depends on participation, accountability, leadership
and workers. The act provides a balanced framework for the purpose of securing health addition
to safety of all workers together with workplaces through protecting manpower against harm to
safety and health via eliminating or minimising chances of risks occurrence. The other purpose
of the HSWA Act is to provide effective workplace consultation, resolution, representation
addition to cooperation in case of issues. The director of Woolworths NZ works with the
provisions of the act that assist in meeting all the requirements of HSWA Act in proper manner.
There are various number of health and safety practices that are framed and implemented buy the
director in the workplace so that proper protection are provided to all the workers against any
harm. The company has also created heath and safe work environment so to make employees
happy together with more productive as this helps them to avoid or reduce consequences of
injuries or frequent sick.
Health and safety management practices of entity
Health and safety management practices are said to the actions that are taken or
implemented by the management of enterprise for the purpose of providing healthy addition to
safe workplace with the objective of fulfilling key requirements or legislations and regulations a
implemented by government of the nation. These practices have strong objective of protect entire
staff members and other stakeholders from risky situations (Burke, 2016). In various companies,
these practices are used for prioritising workplace safety for sourcing people, attracting
candidates and ensuring that manpower works and goes home safe at end of the day. In
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Woolworths NZ, directors have adopted certain health and safety management practices with the
aim to reducing or eliminating any harm to employees that work at workplace. With various
practices, the organisation provides effective mechanisms for participation of manpower and
representatives for the activities. Following are some of the practices that reflect that the
company meets duty requirements of HSWA Act, 2015:
Safety and rehabilitation policy: The Company cares about its team members as well as
is committed to deliver best recovery options in order to allow manpower to return to
sustainable, healthy and safety work. In the policy, managers of Woolworths NZ recognised the
needs to provide an environment that is health and safe for its staff. All the activities are in the
policy are planned to support safety culture and ensure that all the workforce are safe from
hazards, injuries or risks to their health at the time of work. Through this policy, the directors and
entire management team are working with responsibility to encourage early reporting about any
illness or chances of injury in context to some work so that all the early options for treatment are
provided to protect heath of people. It also maintains privacy along with confidentiality that is
required by law of members information (Cherry and Jacob, 2016). The information about the
practice is delivered to all supervisors and managers of the stores so that the policy is
implemented properly as per the requirements. Managers are more responsible for delivering the
practice and ensuring that all the activities and actions are taken of time so that all people are
safe at workplace. Monitoring of the practice is done by the administrators of the company. They
monitor the practice through developing and regularly reassessing of recovery together with
work plan that provides information about best possible outcomes and suitable actions taken in
case of any injury. The managers and leaders of the stores reviews the policy again and again so
to ensure that no person gets injured or faces harm against any risks at the time working with the
company. reviewing all the situations and policy is also necessary as it helps in identifying the
gaps that creates probability of occurrence of harmful conditions. The director of Woolworths
NZ consult the ideas and thoughts with team members in order to receive feedbacks related to
measures provided for health and safety in the workplace so that the performances are improved
and everyone feels protected against any uncertainty.
Communication and Training: Another health and safety management practice of
Woolworths NZ is communication and training to employees. Functional workplace requires
proper communication and training that can empower employees and staff to analyse the chance
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that can cause injury and communicate the same to managers. In dynamic business environment,
various organisations struggle in empowering together with motivating employees when it comes
to health and safety (Dimoff, Kelloway and Burnstein, 2016). With eth policy of communication
and training, directors of Woolworths NZ makes wide attempts that empowers workforce to
manage own safety along with protect health. In this context, managers plan wide training
sessions and also adopts lines of communication that enable in less restrictions to contact with
top managers about any type of risk or injury that is analysed. Moreover, in training session,
managers of the entity provide learning to all manpower about using techniques or measures
related to safety kit and other ones. The company delivers the policy or practice through
consistent messages related to health and safety which creates accountable and productive
workforce who feel valued at workplace. Regular training and ongoing communication results in
improving knowledge of staff members and helps in showing organisational values that
reinforces right behaviour. The retail business monitors the practice by comparing the set
guidelines and guidelines that are available in HSWA Act, 2015 so that all the duty requirements
of the legislation are meet effectively. This helps managers to have positive employee relations
and educated manpower that have skills to protect themselves and their co workers in case of
some issues or accidents at premise. The managers monitor all the activities in training sessions
and also analyses how effectively employees uses them in uncertain situations (Gunningham and
Sinclair, 2017). The administrators also ensure strong personal connections with employees for
their own safety as well as safety of others. In the workplace, all the training sessions and
communication lines are reviewed by all supervisor so that barriers are eliminated in
communication and training are provided as per the requirement of workers.
Utilisation of lagging addition to leading indicators: Various entities utilises lagging
indicators that are analyse the incidents that have occurred in past and what actions were taken to
provide safety to people. Lagging indicators comprises what are the situations that happened in
previous times and what solutions were taken. In Woolworths NZ, directors use the practice in
case when similar type of situation occurs. This helps them in taking solutions in limited duration
that protect the entire company and its staff members. All the planning is done through
forecasting future situations and analysing the previous cases. When similarities are found then
managers uses the solution that was implemented at past (Healy, 2016). Leading indications
provides administrators of Woolworths NZ with capabilities to record proper information.
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Certain helping leading indicators are Average JSA Score, frequency of safety training and
number of safety audits with inspections. At the workplace, the practice is delivered as per the
circumstances and situations which have resemblance with past ones. All the actions that
protected health and provided safety to people in the cases are analysed and them implemented
properly. Along with this, managers also make certain modifications in the past action and
deliver them in actual scenario. Managers monitor the ways in which employees handled risks
and situations that showed positive outcomes. They also influence manpower to handle things by
their own and support them at each phase in order to protect health and safety against any risk
type or situations that have chances to occur. All the scenario and workings are reviewed with
full consideration so that no one in the workplace is affected negatively. If directors have any
doubt in solutions taken in past in relation to similar situation then they informs the same to
supervisors or managers of different stores so that situations are monitored properly and remedial
actions are taken as per the requirements of the HSW Act, 2015.
High functioning safety committee: At Woolworths NZ, management team has
implemented the practice of making high functioning safety committee that provide analysis
together with directions in context to existing state of safety together with heath ob business and
the ways wellbeing of employees can be improves with time. The managers plan to adopt the
practice with consultation and discussion to directors of the entity (Huber, 2017). Establishing or
delivering workplace health and safety committee is an effective ways through which employees
are encourages for participating in organisational safety programs. The responsibilities of
functioning safety committee in Woolworths NZ includes leading safety training, establishing
conflict resolution procedures, crafting safety programs, proposing safety checklists, providing
forum to discuss issues related to health and safety and collaborating on the issues. The delivery
of the practice is done through proper support of directors and other administrators so that all the
people are provided effective protection from any incidents and cases that can hamper their heath
addition to safety in company. The practice is implemented in the company with the objective of
reducing risks associates with workplace illnesses addition to injuries as well as ensuring
regulations as defined in HSWA Act, 2015. The actions taken by the committee are monitored
by administrators and various suggestions are also taken from the committee to improve current
safety state of the business that results in making employees potential enough to manage own
workings and take decision in context to any risky situation. The committee reviews all its
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decisions prior to implementing them in real life scenario (Lee, 2017). In Woolworths NZ, high
safety functioning committee first analysing and forecast situations so that it makes suitable
actions which provide safety to people and elimination of risky conditions. The company has
effective safety committee that maximises efforts of leaders through getting employees involved
as well as adds ownership degree among entire organisational population that motivate them in
protecting themselves and create healthy environment.
Formalised safety policy: Directors of Woolworths NZ have prepared a formalised
safety policy as safety and health management practice for its workforce. With this practice, the
managers are more responsible for demonstrating safety commitments. Moreover, all the
planning related with the practice are recorded, shared and embraced in best ways so that it is
accessible to people and is easily updated on time. Human resource management of the
organisation plans activities in relation with the amendments stated in HSWA Act, 2015 so that
all its duty requirements are fulfilled for protecting heath and providing safety to internal people.
The managers delivers or implements the policy in the workplace through actively engaging all
staff force and sharing all the necessary information including proactive safety audits, hazard
identification, inspection of situations and so on so that all the employees are aware about the
practice. Further, monitoring of the practice is done through discussion about risks that have
chances of occur and suitable actions that are taken to mitigate them. Addition to this, managers
of the enterprise also ensures that all the set essentials of the policy are used in corresponding
situations that leads to achieving well defined objectives (Mullen, Kelloway and Teed, 2017).
The policy provide something unique and also helps in discovering what a risk together with
controlled environment must look like that provide critical safety protections and less harm to
heath of people. Well defined safety policy act as key to company as it assist in all stage by
reviewing current requirements, interdependencies, controls, operations and risks so that gaps are
identified to make corrections and improvement opportunities are grabbed. With the health and
safety management practice, directors of Woolworths NZ foster flexibility in working and also
supervise people to handle critical tasks without any harm to health of employees. Moreover, the
practice demonstrates about several ways in which managers and leaders of company are able to
working with commitment for providing healthy and safe environment to work.
Health and safety management practices are all about how effectively an organisation
provides safe and healthy workplace to its employees. With this practice, managers develops a
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workplace environment that is encourages employees to work harder and become confident to
deal with risky challenges that may hamper their health, wellness and safety. Establishing and
implementing several practices concerned with organisational health and safety ensures the
employees that they work in the environment that is safe for them (Reese, 2018). Organisational
directs takes decisions for the safety and health management practices by considering all the
provisions or amendments described in HSWA Act, 2015. In context to Woolworths NZ, the
managers have adopted various practices concerned with health and safety so to ensure that the
employees are protected against any injuries or other harm which ensures that all the duty
requirements are meet according to the legislation. The practices aim to provide healthy and safe
environment through reducing or mitigating hazards, raising awareness between manpower and
many others that can influence business related activities and workings of employees. All the
practices help the organisation in managing safety risks that prevent injuries together with
occupational ill health.
CONCLUSION
As per the above discussion it has been concluded that it is necessary for all organisation
whether small or large to develop and follow occupational health and safety management
practices in accordance with requirements of HSWA Act, 2015. The concept is concerned health
and safety, occupational safety and many more terms. It is one of multidisciplinary field related
to safety, welfare together with heath of manpower at premise of the entity. The essential
requirement of the health and safety at occupational place is to foster safe and healthy
environment that protect co-workers, employers and many more from any risk or harm. The
main practices that an entity adopts in workplace to give protection to organisational people
includes formalised safety policy, high functioning safety committee, utilisation of lagging
addition to leading indicators, communication and training, safety and rehabilitation policy. All
these practices assist in taking reasonable care of employee safety and execute suitable actions
for the issues. These all have strong emphasis towards primarily hazard prevention and leads to
causing as least as possible harm to health of people. These practices also help in maintaining
addition to promoting health and working abilities of employees, improving organisational
environment and making it conducive towards mitigating any form of risks. Performing activities
through following the practices also encourages positive social climate together with smooth
operations that enhances productivity of all the undertaking.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Armstrong, M., & Taylor, S. (2020). Armstrong's handbook of human resource management
practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
Bratton, J. (Ed.). (2020). Organizational leadership. SAGE Publications Limited.
Burke, R. J. (2016). The fulfilling workplace: the organization's role in achieving individual and
organizational health. Routledge.
Cherry, B., & Jacob, S. R. (2016). Contemporary nursing: Issues, trends, & management.
Elsevier Health Sciences.
Dimoff, J. K., Kelloway, E. K., & Burnstein, M. D. (2016). Mental health awareness training
(MHAT): The development and evaluation of an intervention for workplace leaders.
International Journal of Stress Management. 23 (2). 167.
Gunningham, N., & Sinclair, D. (2017). Leaders and laggards: next-generation environmental
regulation. Routledge.
Healy, J. (2016). Improving health care safety and quality: reluctant regulators. Routledge.
Huber, D. (2017). Leadership and nursing care management-e-book. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Lee, N. R. (2017). The practice of managerial leadership. Xlibris Corporation.
Mullen, J., Kelloway, E. K., & Teed, M. (2017). Employer safety obligations, transformational
leadership and their interactive effects on employee safety performance. Safety science.
91. 405-412.
Reese, C. D. (2018). Occupational health and safety management: a practical approach. CRC
press.
Roughton, J., Crutchfield, N., & Waite, M. (2019). Safety culture: An innovative leadership
approach. Butterworth-Heinemann.
Spurgeon, P., Clark, J., & Ham, C. (2017). Medical leadership: from the dark side to centre
stage. CRC Press.
Online:
Woolworths NZ. 2020. [Online]. Available through: < https://www.woolworthsnz.co.nz/>
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