WHS Management System Project: Australian Hardware Case Study Analysis

This project presents a comprehensive analysis of the Workplace Health and Safety (WHS) management system for Australian Hardware. It begins by reviewing the company's scenario and simulated business information, including financial data, organizational structure, and existing WHS policies. The project then focuses on determining the key features of an appropriate WHS management system to propose for Australian Hardware, addressing the need for adaptation and amendments to existing policies, and defining required roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities. The project includes an estimation of the costs associated with the implementation of the proposed WHS management system, covering human, physical, and financial resources. Furthermore, the project develops a detailed policy and procedure for WHS risk management, defining the organization's approach to WHS risk management and its commitment to legal compliance, including the duty of care for PCBUs, officers, and workers. The project also references relevant legislation and codes of practice, such as the WHS Act, to ensure the proposed system's effectiveness and compliance.

WORKPLACE HEALTH AND
SAFETY (WHS)

TABLE OF CONTENTS
PROJECT 1......................................................................................................................................1
Review the Australian Hardware scenario in Appendix 1...........................................................1
Review the Australian Hardware simulated business information in Appendices
2–5................................................................................................................................................1
Determination of the features for an appropriate WHS management system to propose for
Australian Hardware....................................................................................................................2
Question 3. Develop a policy and procedure for WHS risk management...................................3
Question 4. Review the Australian Hardware scenario in Appendix 6.......................................4
ASSESSMENT TASK 2.................................................................................................................7
PROJECT 3......................................................................................................................................8
Review the Australian Hardware scenario in Appendix 1...........................................................8
Review the business information in the appendices of Assessment Task 1 and WHSMS
documentation and planning of Assessment Tasks 1 and 2.........................................................8
Review the Australian Hardware national WHS data in Appendix 2..........................................8
Develop an evaluation report.......................................................................................................9
Develop a plan for the implementation of your recommendations, including the
implementation of training/induction recommendations.............................................................9
Create a plan for a typical training or safety induction session.................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

PROJECT 1
Review the Australian Hardware scenario in Appendix 1
The Australia Hardware scenario of the given organisation is done on the basis of the
safety standards. However, the legal and ethical obligations must be taken seriously to gain the
industry benchmark. For e.g. current industry benchmark of this company is 10.1. The safety
measures of the workplace are decreasing and in 2013, the LTIFR rating was 13.9 which clearly
indicated that this company has poor lost time to the injury frequency rate. Additionally, the
main areas consisted of implementation of manual labour for hardware goods and outdoor
furniture that are available in the company's warehouses and in the customer service areas. There
is also mis-handling of hazardous materials by the staff including the drivers, customer service
staff etc. This is due to unsystematic WHS record keeping as there is no compliance of WHS and
thus, it requires a more robust WHS management system.
Review the Australian Hardware simulated business information in Appendices
2–5.
Appendix 2 shed light on the Australian company named Australia Hardware Ltd, which
was established in the year 1982 and is head-quartered at Sydney, New South Wales. Its network
of 138 warehouses or stores has target markets such as home improvers, DYIs and trades
persons. Additionally, it included about the vision statement and the strategic directions to
maintain market share, control the direct and indirect operational costs, increasing sales revenues
and more. This consists of products and services and the marketing strategy of this company.
Appendix 3 is about this company's organisational chart including about the Board of
Directors and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). There is a hierarchical system which includes
CFO, COO, Marketing and Human Resources. There is a senior manager who has been allotted
to the distinct business. Next in line is Store Manager. Each designation has its importance and
must be given importance by dividing the works and responsibilities accordingly.
Appendix 4 has given this Australian Hardware's WHS policy and procedures which has
been followed principles to perform operations and policies to maintain the health and safety of
the management including the staff and employees. The Australian and New Zealand standards
for the WHS management system which is used by organisation to enable external audit.
However it could also be used by the organisation to help them to meet their legal requirement
1

and leading to sustained improvement into health and safety performance. The principles involve
about ensuring compliance, ensuring safe workplace by detecting hazards, providing appropriate
information related to working and training and more such principles. However, the purpose,
responsibilities, legislations and scope is mentioned to know about the work ethics that is carried
by this company's management. Herein, an outline about the responsibilities has been given and
included about providing support, supervision and giving provision of adequate resources etc.
and along with, the employees guidelines has been given to minimise the risks, taking care to
protect and following the policies such as Work Health and Safety Act 2011 and more.
Appendix 5 highlighted the approval authority such as CEO, CFO and Store General
Manager. Along with this, it highlighted about the purpose of procurement policy to confirm
about the purchasing of resources in accordance to the Australian Hardware requirements. Next
it describes about scope, responsibility and relevant legislation like Corporation Act 2001,
Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 etc.
Determination of the features for an appropriate WHS management system to propose for
Australian Hardware
Definition: A WHS management system is that type of system where the entire workforce would
be given a platform to minimise the risks and improve the productivity.
Overview: WHS responsibilities maintain and safeguard the personnel's duties with dignity and
respect. These policies and procedures help in robust WHS management of record keeping for
better maintenance of all the details of the entire taskforce and the equipment and materials
handling. Moreover, the workplace personnel such as manager, team leaders, workers etc. must
be given proper training in managing safety risks and other codes of practice to protect the
wellbeing and health. This defines the entire duty holders with equal importance in helping the
organisation meet its WHSMS.
Adaptation and amendments to existing policies and procedures:
There is a need to follow adaptation and amendments to be made to the existing policies
and procedures by making the employees comply with the given set of guidelines. The
management and the accounts' department must frame the guidelines to make the record
keeping in more organised manner to conduct the transactions properly (Men and Tsai, 2015).
Moreover, the existing legislation must get re-structured after discussing with the legal team
to adopt the specific principles for appropriate functionalities.
2

Roles, responsibilities and accountabilities required:
Store Manager must be appointed to check the validity and reliability of the proposed
WHS management systems. This individual must be made accountable to monitor the activities
and operations for smooth running. Along with, a Consultant is required to authorise the
changes in all the departments with the help of Team Leaders efficiently without any biases. He
must be accountable by delivering the objectives in the given stipulated time. Lastly, Trainer
must also be hired for giving sessions to the workers because of giving proper guidelines to all
the employees for understanding the safety measures. This would help in establishing
transparency between the administration and employees and enhance the trust and loyalty among
the employees.
Question 2. Estimated costs of required Human, physical and financial resources over the first
year of implementation
The total number of stores is 138
The total approved budget is $1 million
Duration= Two hours of training for each individual for gaining knowledge about safety
training
Particular Amount
Installation of machineries 200000
Equipment 500000
Salaries 200000
Suppliers commission 30000
Raw material 35000
Promotional expenses 35000
Total $1000000
Question 3. Develop a policy and procedure for WHS risk management
Define the organisation’s approach to WHS risk management and commitment to legal
compliance
3

Organisation’s Approach is defined as the elimination of WHS risks through adoption of 3R
namely recognising, reviewing and responding.
Organization's policy:
The policy includes adopting the reasonable directions to make the employees aware about the
safe work procedures and understand the protective gear and usage of equipment. Anti-
Discrimination Policy and Sustainability Management Policy might be included to maintain the
business environment.
Organization's procedure:
This consists of particular methods to be practised by the workforce through express policies
and is in relation to the safety and health of people.
Relationship between Proposed WHSMS to the organisation’s management:
The organisation’s approach to WHS risk management is concise and coherent in nature.
This is based on following the legal compliance via legislation, rules and policies. Their aim is to
lay an efficient operation for better internal control process of the company's taskforce. It would
assist in maintaining the commitment for mitigating the risk factors (Schlosberg, 2016). There
are some legislation and codes of practice that must be used to implement the WHS risk
management like WHS Act for understanding the relevancy of following the codes of practice to
maintain the risk management. However, in context to this company, WHS Act is important and
this must be implemented to manage the work health and safety risks. This is possible through
employing the Sections 19-28 where Section 27 is the Officers' duty of care and Section 28 as
Workers' duty of care and 46-49 as well. These legislations together would be supportive in
fulfilling the requirements of the proposed WHSMS approach, policy and procedure.
PCBU duty of care
Definition:
PCBU means the Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking or who is majorly
responsible for broader concept to describe overall working arrangement. The duty of PCBU will
be to ensure the health and safety of all workers who are at work within business or undertaking.
He or she will be highly responsible for removing all health and safety barriers or risk of
workers.
4

Officer- Under the current act mangers and supervisor who are accountable for workplace
health, safety and welfare of those who are working under their direction or guidance.
Workers- they are not absolved of responsibilities for their work in health and safety for the
WHS act it is required for worker to take care for their own health and safety.
Overview: The duty of PCBU ensures that workers are not exposed to any risk in terms of health
and safety. The focus is to give training and education during direct influence with worker.
Section 19 of WHS states that the primary duty of care of PCBU is to maintain and provide safe
working environment. This also includes appropriate handling and safe use of equipment,
chemicals as well with providing adequate facilities.
Section 20 added that PCBU at workplace has ensured that none of the means of existing or
entering into workplace must ensure that it is without risk.
Section 21 PCBU at workplace should ensure that all sort of plants, machinery and fixtures
should also be without risk to safety of the person.
It is also required that PCBU should be consulting with their workers who are carrying
out work for the business or those who are directly linked with matter related with health and
safety.
Section 47-49 is important to collaborate with workers and PCBU which will be known as
consultation this will ensure sharing of information (Primary duty of care – Consequences under
sec 19 WHS Act, 2019). It is the duty of PCBU to consult with workers and ask them about their
viewpoints regarded at the time of identification of risk and hazards which is rising from work.
Way to eliminate or minimising risk can also be consulted with them.
Officers’ duty of care (managers, team duty of care as per OHS Act)
It could be included that all workers should be taking reasonable care about their own
health and safety and also that of others who could be affected by their acts. However it also
includes that complying with these rules and regulations is the duty of employer or officer in
charge. As they will be playing important role in presenting and ensuring safety and security of
people at work so that they could achieve safe and healthy working environment.
Section 19: For all employer it is their duty in way of maintaining a safe working environment
for all their workers which is stated in section 19 of Occupational safety and health act 1984
(OSH act) (Primary duty of care – Consequences under sec 19 WHS Act, 2019). This will be
5

enacted by employer in way of minimising risk to health and safety and is also termed to as
primary duty of PCBU.
Section 27 it is laid down for duty of officer which clearly states that the officer should be
exercising due diligence so that they could ensure compliance of health and safety duties. The
duty of worker.
Section 28 states that there should be reasonable care for health and safety of others.
The duty of care of worker will be including to ensure that all health and safety of both
worker and PCBU should be practicable so that they could maintain proper environment.
Procedures for identifying hazards, and assessing and controlling risk
The procedure consists of steps that involve firstly, spotting the hazard, assessing the risk
and making changes. It also depends on the size and complexity of the control procedure. A Risk
Identification process is used to mitigate the measures and assess the risks beforehand to prevent
its occurrence and help the management to lay the foundation of effective risk analysis planning.
Here, the hierarchy will be helpful by understanding the important guidelines and ensure that
these will be employed by the entire taskforce (Bates, 2017). The identification of hazards in
terms of materials handling, use of equipment and its installation etc. and the work practices are
also included to evaluate the situation and make a plan to minimise the risks. Moreover, the
administration must follow the instructions mentioned under the WHS Act to maintain the safety
regulations in more concrete ways. The staff must be given training and promote the community
consultation to address the queries. Lastly, they must be given updating regarding the policies
and procedures.
Training expense- The training cost will constitute of larger part of implementation of WHSMS
which would also sometime require additional training or will be in need of budget as well.
Manger need to determine the estimated cost training which will be designated for person who is
responsible for approval of purchasing, financial and budgeting planning.
Question 4. Review the Australian Hardware scenario in Appendix 6
Appendix 6 has highlighted the WHS data on the national levels and included the
following parameters such as NMI (Near Miss incident), MTI (Medical Treatment Injury), IR
(Incidence Rate) etc. The occupational injury and disease has been presented by understanding
the incidents and frequencies. In addition to the above, several roles and description has been
6

given who were injured and were prescribed to take absence from work. For instance, Custom
service staff who hurt the back while lifting the lawn mower for customers. The team leader
organised a remedial training and coaching to make the employees understand about the use of
any equipment and gave 10 days leave. There was another case where a new customer service
staff member faced disciplinary action where the team leader took a safety action meeting and
was notified by the regulator six weeks after the incident and was highly embarrassed.
This incident summarised that the workers were new and did not know the safety
guidelines and thus, they met with accidents and challenging situations. Nevertheless, they
lacked the basic training and should have been given training about the implementation of WHS
management systems.
Question 4: Patterns of occupational injuries and disease in organisation
Figure 1: Patterns of occupational injuries and disease in organisation
7

ASSESSMENT TASK 2
Issue to be resolved: Manual lifting of outdoor furniture and hardware goods in warehouses and
in customer service areas
Solution:
Objective: It is one of the major concerns to be looked into for minimising the risks' formation
and raising proper preventive steps to remove the manual burden.
Overview: The manual lifting is a burden for the labourers to carry the loads and furniture and
might result into accidents or any uncertain crisis. Nevertheless, uncertainty also hampers the
working environment at the time of leaves or absence from work by the workers. Such
unavoidable scenarios might be replaced by giving training and installing automated machines.
Planning to resolve:
 Here, the company must focus in installing automated industrial trolleys or hydraulic
warehouse lifter machine to carry the furniture or any goods related to the hardware (Tsai
and Men, 2017).
 Along with, height adjustable trolleys and using electronic assisted trucks might also be
used.
 This would help in safeguarding the workers from any mis-happening and also by giving
training, the administration can ensure complete disaster management.
Henceforth, AUTOMATION is the answer to remove this obsolete method of using labourers
for lifting the materials, products, goods and furniture of this organisation.
In order to manage this specified risk, the company's store manager has hired automated
vehicles to carry the goods, furniture etc. conveniently. Along with, training has been given to
the workers to properly execute it to minimise the losses and help the administration to
effectively manage the risks.
8

PROJECT 3
Review the Australian Hardware scenario in Appendix 1
Mentioned above.
Review the business information in the appendices of Assessment Task 1 and WHSMS
documentation and planning of Assessment Tasks 1 and 2
The Australian Hardware simulated business information has been clearly described
including the business name, number of stores and employees. It included about the LTIFR
rating which was 13.9. Moreover, the products and services along with the targeted markets has
also been explained. This has also highlighted the materials mishandling of both the manpower
and the available resources in terms of equipment and materials. Additionally, it led the attention
towards the absence of organised record keeping which has impacted the credibility and
reputational risks. Thus, this company must focus on the WHS management system.
The proposed operational policies and procedures must be outlined in accordance to the
planning that is required to bring concrete changes to make a better version of existing WHS
management systems. This assists in safeguarding the entire task force effectively by providing
them with a set of guidelines. The documentation includes WHS policies, WHS modules to give
information about principles, guidelines and techniques associated with WHS and process
controls with risk assessments. Additionally, the Risk Identification process would be employed
to comprehend the associated risks and the mitigating measures to curb any accidents or
unforeseen accidents. The budget allocates is approximately one million dollars and has been
divided according to the concerned authorities and their roles and responsibilities as well.
Review the Australian Hardware national WHS data in Appendix 2
This section is based on the types of accident that has been undergone by the employees
of this company. There were several types of accidents and incidents such as LTI (Lost Time
Injury), LTIFR (Lost time injury frequency rate), IR (Incidence Rate) and more. This has
highlighted one of the FAI (First Aid incident) on 1st July 2012 where the customer service staffs
hurts the back lifting the lawn mower and missed ten days of his work. In this, the action plan
taken at Wollongong location was by the Team Leader who initiated the training and coaching
for employees. Another incident that took place was of NMI (Near miss Incident) type on 14th
August 2012 where the service staff dropped a leaf blower and another customer service staff
was about to get hit but was narrowly saved.
9

However, if hit then it would have resulted in serious head injury. Thus, there was no
action recorded but the employees were instructed to be cautious at the workplace. Here there
were many incidents that were recorded and according to National LITFR and IR statistics, this
company received a ranking of 9 on LITFR and a score of 1.5 at IR. Lastly, this also included
national summary in context to workers viewpoints who gets into accidents due to lack of
training and education. Here the focus areas were that the employees were unfamiliar and need
supervisory guidance to learn about the safety awareness and instructed to give reporting training
on the basis of legislation and national standards.
Develop an evaluation report
The recommendations include using a software to keep all the data stored at one location
and then segregating it on the basis of stores to give clarity among the materials and the need of
the employees at each store. Subsequently, it also considers filling up forms from the employees
and the administrative department to verify their credentials and might also add it for future
reference (Gautam and et.al., 2017). There is also need to give proper training sessions on
regular period to the employees regarding the basic details about the company and the
regulations in context to exercise the preventive measures effectively.
The justification required here is the understanding about the needs and requirements
regarding both internal and external requirements. This has highlighted the need to acquire the
basic knowledge about the implementation of WHS legislation, standards and codes of practice.
It involves using WHS Act and other legislations such Anti-Discrimination act, Human Rights
Commission Act etc. which put emphasis on using the policy to make the working conditions
accessible and convenient.
Develop a plan for the implementation of your recommendations, including the implementation
of training/induction recommendations
The strategic planning includes feedbacks from the employees after conducting the
training sessions about the proposed WHS management systems. This would give transparency
regarding the obstacles face by the staff after actual implementation. Moreover, proper auditing
must be considered to check the supervision and complete control on this new and proposed
WHSMS. It would help the management to report all the data properly in the record keeping
under the software used for record keeping. The timeline needed for this is four weeks by using
10