Critical Review of OHS Audit Programs and Risk Management

This report provides a comprehensive critical review of Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) audit programs, focusing on their role in enhancing OHS performance within organizations. It begins with an overview of OHS audit programs and their importance in ensuring workplace safety. The report then delves into the role of Australian OHS legislation, providing examples to illustrate the link between legislation and audit requirements. A comparison of key authoritative technical specifications for OHS audits is presented, followed by an evaluation of the key elements necessary for the success of an audit program, supported by relevant literature. Finally, the report identifies and discusses the roles of key internal and external stakeholders in monitoring and reviewing OHS to improve overall performance, culminating in a concise conclusion that synthesizes the key points. The report emphasizes the importance of effective audit programs in promoting a safe and healthy work environment.

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Contents
Overview:........................................................................................................................................2
Role of Australian OHS legislation:................................................................................................2
Authoritative technical specifications of OHS audits and comparison between key specifications:
.........................................................................................................................................................4
Evolution of key elements:..............................................................................................................5
Role of key internal and external stakeholders:...............................................................................6
Conclusion:......................................................................................................................................7
References:......................................................................................................................................8

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Overview:
Employees and workers are the most important assets of any organization. For any organization
it is of utmost priority to ensure that the health and safety of the workers and employees are
given due importance within the organization. In order to protect the health of the workers and
employees, Australian Govt. has introduced a separate legislation in the country, i.e. OHS.
Business organizations operating in the country are under obligation to ensure that the
regulations of OHS legislation are properly followed. Companies are also required to have OHS
audit programs to oversee whether the rules and regulations of organization health and safety
legislation are complied with or not (Amponsah-Tawiah and Mensah, 2016). OHS audit program
use certain standard procedures to assess report whether the OHS regulations are complied with
by an organization. In addition it is also the responsibility of the auditor conducting the audit to
identify the weaknesses in the OHS system implemented within an organization and to
recommend the steps to improve these weaknesses. A detailed discussion on audit of
Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) shall be made here to further understand the importance
of OHS audit program in ensuring safety and security of the workers and employees in the
workplace in Australia.
Role of Australian OHS legislation:
Australian Govt. in its initiative of safe work Australia has introduced the OH&S legislation to
protect the health of the workers in the workplace. The act requires organizations to take all
necessary steps required to make the work place safe and secure. The arrangements have to be
made by business and non-business organizations depending on the nature of operations carried
out within these organizations. The legal responsibilities and duties of the employers in the
country are outlined in the OHS legislation (Auten and Fritz, 2018). The auditor conducting an

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audit of OHS in an organization must check the safety and security arrangements in the
workplaces of the organization and whether these are in compliance with the regulations of OHS
legislation in the country. The regulating agencies have introduced standard work place norms to
be followed in terms of noise of machines, electric wiring safety, fire extinguishing arrangements
and other work place environment. All these have improved the workplace environment and
have improved the security and safety of the workers in the workplace. The careen shot of an
article published on the subject matter used as an example to discuss the importance of
legislation on OHS audit requirements (Farris, 2012).
(Business.gov.au, 2019)
The acts, regulations and codes of practice have all contributed in preparing an effective audit
program for the auditors to follow. This is simply because the auditors now have a framework to
work with while conducting the audit of OH&S. The guidelines shall be followed by the auditor
while outlining the audit program before each audit by using the WHS / OH&S acts, regulations
and codes of practice. Thus, the role of legislations in setting audit requirements for OHS audits
are quite clear (Business.gov.au, 2019).

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Authoritative technical specifications of OHS audits and comparison between key
specifications:
In order to understand the importance of OHS audit and carry out such audits effectively it is
important to understand different technical specifications of OHS audits. A brief explanation
about the authoritative specifications shall be of OHS audit shall be helpful in this regard.
Ensure legislative compliance: The auditor must ensure that the legislative requirements have
been complied by the client organization. In case any deviation from legislative compliance the
auditor must point out the deviations in his audit report with appropriate recommendations for
the organization (Pryor, 2016).
Benchmark: Over the years OHS practices have been modified and changed to develop
benchmark practices. Benchmark practices shall help the auditors to conduct audit by using these
as standards while carrying OHS audit program in different organizations (Fivizzani, 2010).
Organizational rewards and penalties: The organizations are rewarded for excellent OHS
practices whereas organizations where proper measures have not been taken shall be penalized
for the lack of measures to ensure such measures are instituted immediately.
Best practices: Best practices are defined as the practices that are almost perfect for the
organization and safety requirements. Such practices shall be used as standard practices for the
other organizations to follow (Rizkallah, Eisenberg and Thul, 2013).

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Office and workplace environment checklist: Office and workplace environment means that that
the place where the workers and employees of an organization are work are in proper condition
with necessary facilities.
Fire safety audit: Fire safety audit is a separate part of OHS audit where the auditors give minute
attention to every single detail in relation to the fire safety arrangements in the workplace.
Site audit: In case of construction business it is extremely important for the auditor to inspect
different construction sites to check whether the workers and employees working at the
construction sites are safe. There are number of safety precautions which must be taken by
construction managers at the construction sites to ensure safety and security of the workers (The
Implementation of Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Program at State-Owned Enterprise:
Case Study at Pindad, Ltd., in Bandung, Indonesia, 2015).
Site safety inspection: Again weekly safety site inspection is important for construction business
as the risk at construction sites are significantly higher compared to risk at normal workplaces.
The auditor shall follow the above technical specifications while conducting OHS audits and
accordingly report to the appointing authority his finding during the course of the audit.
Evolution of key elements:
The key elements necessary for an effective audit are explained here for the auditors to prepare
efficient audit programs. An efficient audit program will make the job of an auditor very easy
thus it is important to have an effective audit program. Knowing the key elements of OHS audit
will be helpful in preparing an effective audit program for the auditor.

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Identification of strengths and weaknesses in the workplace of an organization is the main
purpose of OHS audit. The audit program mainly concerned with the areas of accountability,
policy, controls, training programs, use of hazardous materials, communication and others.
Identification of any negative issues associated with any of the above elements is the primary
concern of the auditor. In case he finds any weaknesses in these areas within an organization
then he must inform the management about the areas. In addition he should also mention the area
of weakness in the report. Recommending measures to deal with the weaknesses is also another
objective of conducting OHS audit (Van Linden and Hardies, 2018). Thus, necessary
recommendations shall be given to the management to improve the organizational health and
safety in the workplace. The overall success of an audit to a large extent is dependent on the
understanding of these elements by the auditor. The objective of OHS audit is to not only find
weaknesses in the workplace environment but also to ensure that immediate corrective actions
are taken to strengthen the areas. Understanding these elements thus, extremely important to the
overall success of an audit in relation to the organizational health and safety of the workers and
employees at the workplace.
Role of key internal and external stakeholders:
Firstly, it is important to know who are the internal and external stakeholders of OHS audit are
before determining the key role of these stakeholders in OHS audit program?
Internal stakeholders: Internal stakeholders of an OHS audit are the employees, workers,
management personnel and other staffs of an organization. In short everyone associated with the
organization directly and working in the workplace of the organization whether factory or office
are internal stakeholders of OHS audit. The internal auditors have a key role to play in improving

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the OHS performance by monitoring and reviewing the different elements of OHS system within
the organization (Wiler and Granovsky, 2015).
External stakeholders: External stakeholders include Government, regulatory agencies,
environment, owners and investors. Government and regulatory agencies by introducing WHS/
OHS acts, legislations and other regulatory norms have ensured that these guide the
organizations and businesses to improve the organization health and safety of the workers and
employees at the workplace. Apart from that the environment must be kept clean by using clean
energy, reducing pollution and wastages while conducting business operations. The external
stakeholders have the responsibility to ensure that the organizational culture are in line with the
safety and security of the workers at the workplaces.
Thus both internal and external stakeholders have certain roles and responsibilities in ensuring
that the organization health and safety are given paramount importance. Keeping the
organizations on their toes to improve the workplace environment and condition to ensure that
the health of the workers are not adversely affected while working.
Conclusion:
Summarizing from the above it would be safe to say that the importance of organizational health
and safety practices within an organization can be appraised properly only by an effective OHS
audit program. The auditors are responsible to use a proper audit program and checklist to
effectively conduct such audit to contribute to the improvement of OHS in the workplace.

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References:
Amponsah-Tawiah, K. and Mensah, J. (2016). Occupational Health and Safety and
Organizational Commitment: Evidence from the Ghanaian Mining Industry. Safety and
Health at Work, 7(3), pp.225-230.
Auten, D. and Fritz, C. (2018). Mental health at work. Organizational Dynamics, 2(4),
pp.10-12.
Business.gov.au. (2019). Work Health and Safety (OHS) acts, regulations and codes of
practice. [online] Available at: https://www.business.gov.au/risk-management/health-and-
safety/whs-oh-and-s-acts-regulations-and-codes-of-practice [Accessed 19 May 2019].
Farris, D. (2012). Leveraging organizational structure in safety and emergency preparedness
programs. Journal of Chemical Health and Safety, 19(4), pp.9-14.
Fivizzani, K. (2010). Broaden the audit experience. Journal of Chemical Health and Safety,
17(1), p.67.
Pryor, P. (2016). Accredited OHS professional education: A step change for OHS
capability. Safety Science, 81(87), pp.5-12.
Rizkallah, J., Eisenberg, J. and Thul, A. (2013). Reducing energy consumption while
satisfying laboratory life safety requirements. Journal of Chemical Health and Safety, 20(3),
p.41.
The Implementation of Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Program at State-Owned
Enterprise: Case Study at Pindad, Ltd., in Bandung, Indonesia. (2015). International
Journal of Science and Research (IJSR), 4(12), pp.1237-1241.

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Van Linden, C. and Hardies, K. (2018). Entrance requirements to the audit profession within
the EU and audit quality. International Journal of Auditing, 22(3), pp.360-373.
Wiler, J. and Granovsky, M. (2015). Give that back! Recovery Audit Program activity
trends. Journal of Hospital Medicine, 10(4), pp.273-274.