Maintaining and Evaluating Work Health and Safety Management System

This article discusses the strategies and responsibilities of a team leader in maintaining and evaluating work health and safety management system. It covers topics such as ensuring organizational WHS compliance, maintaining effective WHS management, accessing and controlling risks, documentation of WHS management system, requirement of WHS expert advice, and identifying WHS acts. The article also provides relevant references.

Running head: LEADERSHIP MANAGEMENT
Leadership Management
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Answer 1
Maintaining and Evaluating Work Health and Safety Management System:
As a team leader, the most important tools are
 Engagement with the employees,
 Consultation with the concerned team,
 Communicating the situation.
It is my responsibility to maintain effectiveness and rapidness in times of hazardous
or potential incidents. Consulting the situation with the HR manager without any delay will
be my first decision. However, there are times when employees get physically unfit inside the
workplace. My foremost duty is to take the employee to the concerned medical authorities
present. Moreover, in case of emergency arranging transport, providing with an ambulance
and contacting the family members are the initials steps. For prevention and making the
employees aware of the potential hazards, knowledge transfer sessions and handing survey
sheets are my major strategies. In addition to this, monitoring and keeping track of results is
necessary for providing help to the employees (Zadow et al. 2017). Thus, engagement
provides an excellent support to my overall strategies of leading a team towards success.
Answer 2
Ensuring organizational WHS Compliance:
Being a team leader, it is my duty to insure compliance amongst the employees. For
obedience amongst the employees in potential situation, managing WHS Unit and following
up the issues swiftly is how a team leader should be. Before any occurrence, it is my duty to
educate my team about the potential situation that may arise in the workplace. Teams such as

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monitoring team, engagement team, etc monitors the employees’ awareness and carry out the
knowledge transfer sessions. Just as the organizational policy states, team leaders should be
very rapid and be able to take quick and effective decisions. They play and important part in
these types of situations. At times, I carry out some strategies such as survey’s or drills. In
case of survey, I personally mail sheets and gather the results to keep a track about the
employees’ satisfaction regarding the policies of the company.
Answer 3
Maintaining effective WHS management:
As stated earlier, it is my responsibility to look after my staff or team members. In
order to do that, I always rely on ideas that are effective in crisis situations;
 For implementing WHS knowledge, I conduct training programs and sometimes
organize situation drills to monitor the activity as well as the engagement of the
employees. This also gives me a transparent idea about the communication flow
inside my team. Training sessions are mostly theoretical situations regarding how
hazards can be prevented.
 In these sessions the employees are asked to come up with ideas that can be
implemented real time. At times, I invite experts from the WHS team of the company
to give an inner knowledge about situations that can be prevented in an early stage. As
per Terry et al. (2015), sharing real stories in such sessions among each other helps in
enhancing communication as well as awareness.
Answer 4
Accessing and Controlling risks:

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Hazards Plans Implemented Monitoring Evaluation and
Control
Fire Various plans such as
modern extinguishers,
extra sand buckets,
Water outlet systems/
Sprinklers and Sensors
The WHS unit consists
of fire alert team who
constantly monitor
potential fire threats,
monitoring through the
sensors and also
keeping other teams
such as water,
resources, etc teams
handy.
Mostly in situations
like this the alerting
teams access the
speaker section of the
company and announce
the situation so that the
employees are aware of
the current scenario.
Hazardous Leaks Sealing the potential
zones only for the
experts,
implementation of
security cameras and
systems, managing
prevention resources
effectively.
They have a team of
experts who are
equipped with
monitoring and
prevention
technologies but when
issue arises they inform
the WHS unit who
conveys the message.
Efficiency of the team
is very critical in these
situations. They also
evaluate the nature of
the leak and act
accordingly.
Answer 5
Documentation of WHS Management System:
A team leader’s responsibilities for documentation are as follows;

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 Transparency while involving the senior management: At times, it is up to the team
leader to negotiate with the management when providing necessary resources when a
situation arises.
 Having a proof that the safety policies are successfully initiated in the workplace:
Training sessions are conducted frequently along with monitoring the engagement of
the employees. Monitoring the responsibility assigned to the teams and evaluating the
performance at various levels are also important factors.
 Identification, reporting and also evaluating situations and also taking an active role in
the workplace inspections. New ideas for preventive measures are also appreciated.
 First aid arrangements, monitoring and maintaining the health and environmental
standards and managing medical emergency situations (Hammer et al. 2015).
Answer 6
Requirement of WHS expert advice:
 Experts provide extra guidance to the existing WHS unit of the company. They
also engage with other teams just to motivate them with the idea that how
important WHS is and every employee should extend hands at times of need.
 Their advices and information provides me with better knowledge of the potential
risks and preventive measures, so that I can discuss with the team. Moreover,
through this I get to know more about the team.
 WHS experts help the employees to take instant steps to prevent risks. In an
organization, experts tend to consult the involvement of the team through which
risks can be minimized to a large extent.
 Experts always recommend the team leaders to focus on newsletters, magazines,
safety journals and training sessions. These helps in various ways to cut the risks

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and also increase the knowledge of the employees in what they should do (Pescud
et al. 2015).
Answer 7
Identifying WHS Acts:
For a team leader, it is very crucial to know the regulations and acts related to Work
Health and Safety. Moreover, the policies of my organization are listed as follows;
 It provides a framework to work with the WHS unit more efficiently.
 Code of Practice is always implanted in the teams. Generally, these are practical
guidance to achieve good standards.
 WHS mainly targets the individual who is very careful about healthy standards of
living. Employees work by maintaining their work-life balance and come up with
various ideas regarding health and safety (Hofmann, Burke and Zohar 2017).

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References
Hammer, L.B., Truxillo, D.M., Bodner, T., Rineer, J., Pytlovany, A.C. and Richman, A.,
2015. Effects of a workplace intervention targeting psychosocial risk factors on safety and
health outcomes. BioMed research international, 2015.
Hofmann, D.A., Burke, M.J. and Zohar, D., 2017. 100 years of occupational safety research:
From basic protections and work analysis to a multilevel view of workplace safety and
risk. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(3), p.375.
Pescud, M., Teal, R., Shilton, T., Slevin, T., Ledger, M., Waterworth, P. and Rosenberg, M.,
2015. Employers’ views on the promotion of workplace health and wellbeing: a qualitative
study. BMC public health, 15(1), p.642.
Terry, D., Lê, Q., Nguyen, U. and Hoang, H., 2015. Workplace health and safety issues
among community nurses: a study regarding the impact on providing care to rural consumers,
5(8), p.e008306.
Zadow, A.J., Dollard, M.F., Mclinton, S.S., Lawrence, P. and Tuckey, M.R., 2017.
Psychosocial safety climate, emotional exhaustion, and work injuries in healthcare
workplaces. Stress and Health, 33(5), pp.558-569.