Comprehensive Report: WHS Development and Implementation at Woolworths

This report examines the implementation and management of a Work Health and Safety (WHS) system within Woolworths, Australia, from the perspective of a senior manager. The report details the roles and responsibilities involved in maintaining a safe working environment, including informing staff about policies, identifying hazards, and aligning organizational policies with risk control measures. It emphasizes the importance of staff training, hazard control plans, and adherence to WHS regulations. Furthermore, the report discusses the use of virtual risk management tools and outlines the WHS Acts, regulations, and codes of practice followed. The role of the Person Conducting Business or Undertakings (PCBU) under new Work, Health, and Safety rules is also addressed, providing a comprehensive overview of WHS management within the retail context. The report utilizes relevant references to support its arguments and recommendations.

Running head: DEVELOP IMPLEMENT WHS
Develop implement WHS
Name of student
Name of University
Author note

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DEVELOP IMPLEMENT WHS
Table of Contents
Part A...............................................................................................................................................3
Introduction..................................................................................................................................3
Body.............................................................................................................................................3
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................5
Part B...............................................................................................................................................5
Using a virtual risk management tool..........................................................................................5
WHS Acts, regulations, and codes of practice, standards followed at workplace.......................6
Role of PCBU under new Work, Health and Safety rules...........................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................8

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Part A
Introduction
The report will discuss how I fulfilled my roles and responsibilities as the senior manager
to manage the Work Health and Safety system for a particular time span at Woolworths,
Australia. It is important for me to ensure that the workers within the retail store are safe and so
that Work Health and Safety system is needed to be managed properly. Woolworths is one of the
major retail supermarket chains in Australia that provided good quality products and services to
its customers from the stores and even online (Woolworths.com.au 2018).
Body
My roles and responsibilities, as a senior manager of Woolworths are to keep the staffs
safe and secured through proper maintenance of the Work Health and Safety system. To ensure
that the health and safety standards are maintained, I must inform the health and safety
management team members about the retail store policies and procedures that should be
maintained. It is also important to check that the organizational policies and procedures are in
place so that the team members can properly access these and then implement the Work Health
System policies properly (Cotlear et al. 2015). The staffs of the organization must know about
the risk control procedures as well as identify the hazards that may be the cause of harm of others
within the retail store. All the members of the team should be able to gain accurate information
and data regarding the management of management of health and safety issues and so it would
be important to align the organizational policies with the approaches undertaken to resolve the
issues.

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When the staffs are not accustomed with the organizational policies, they must
immediately communicate with the relevant personnel involved with the development of
organizational policies related to the management of hazards and risk control measures. As a
senior management, it is my responsibility to rectify the staffs and so the various results that
have generated due to the issues shall be discussed with them. The measures that should be
undertaken and the probable outcomes must be discussed with them too for making sure that the
issues do not arise again (Pouliakas and Theodossiou 2013). The organizational policies must be
aligned with the ways of managing potential hazards through proper allocation of organizational
resources. This would not only help in controlling the risks efficiently but would also monitor the
effectiveness of the control measures to ensure whether those have brought good outcomes or
not.
By using the control measures, it would easy for the retail store to reduce the chances of
risks related to injuries, safety and health risks and even allow the employer to create good
working conditions for the employees. Effective controls protect workers from workplace
hazards; help avoid injuries, illnesses, and incidents; minimize or eliminate safety and health
risks; and help employers provide workers with safe and healthful working conditions. The
processes described in this section will help employers prevent and control hazards identified in
the previous section. The staffs should have a clear understanding of the conditions that might
create hazardous conditions and at the same time, created a hierarchy of controls (Schaufeli and
Taris 2014). The hazard control plan was also created to manage the selection and
implementation of the controls for protecting the employees from any harm and keep them safe
and secure during emergency situations too. The hazardous substances should be stored properly
according to the policies and procedures and furthermore make sure that only the skilled and

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knowledgeable staffs handle the equipments and machineries. The performances of the team
members are assessed to check whether they have been following the safe manual handling
procedures or not. First aid, fire exit and fire alarms should be present, according to the store
emergency policies to maintain the safety of the workers and even identify the needs of training
and development based on the Work Health and Safety policies (Sekendiz et al. 2014). It would
identify the areas of weaknesses of the employees and develop programs for improving their
skills, knowledge and expertise. The training sessions must be provided to them that could fulfill
the requirements of the store policies and legislations for facilitating the maintenance of health
and safety standards at the workplace.
Conclusion
All these major aspects illustrated in the above section should allow for developing and
implementing the WHS properly at Woolworths because this had created scopes for control
measures that should prevent the issues resulting from hazardous substances. The risks should be
allocated based on severity and it could make the organization align the WHS legislations and
rules with the control procedures for managing the hazardous substances. The developmental
needs would be identified, which could further help in arranging training sessions for them to
make them skilled enough to handle the equipments and maintain the safety standards too.
Part B
Using a virtual risk management tool
The Virtual office could allow the managers and employees of the organization to
manage the health and safety risks within the workplace properly by identifying the hazards that
might lead to physical injury to the workers. The First aid room is selected and here there can

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risks related to communicable diseases, infection, lack of time management while providing the
treatment procedures. To control these kinds of hazards, proper hygiene should be maintained
and protective equipments should be used so that infection should not occur. The soiled and dirty
items must be disposed properly, which could create infection and communicable diseases
during contact (Joint 2012). At Woolworths, the first aid facilities are made available properly to
ensure that the workers can get immediate treatment when exposed to any kinds of harms or
risks. The retail store has implemented policies to make the workers know about the probable
injuries that may be experienced at the workplace and furthermore gain proper access to the first
aid items. The first aid officers are trained so that they have the necessary first aid contact details
and the hazards and risks are overcome as soon as possible. The Work Health and Safety
Regulations are maintained to make sure that the rules and regulations are followed and first aid
is provided in case of any risk faced by the workers (Bahn and Barratt-Pugh 2012).
WHS Acts, regulations, and codes of practice, standards followed at workplace
Work Health and Safety Act, health and safety standards and codes of practices are
followed to make sure that the workplace possess good working conditions and none of the
workers face any risks. While visiting a restaurant in Australia, I found that hand hygiene was
enabled and the wastes were disposed properly. In case of any accidents resulting in injuries, first
aid facilities were used and cleaning procedures were enabled to ensure that accidental contact
with blood could be prevented. The soiled items and wastes were disposed properly to prevent
contraction of diseases from contaminated items. The First Aid responder was used during
emergencies to ensure that appropriate medical advices could be provided to the person who seek
medical attention (Macdonald et al. 2012).

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Role of PCBU under new Work, Health and Safety rules
The Person Conducting Business or Undertakings or PCBUs must follow the health and
safety legislations, rules and regulations to maintain health and safety within the workplace. The
WHS Act has maintained the health and safety duties on a person by ensuring that the health and
safety of workers are maintained. Duties are placed on the individuals who are considered as
PCBUs and these roles have been considered as reasonable and practicable under the WHS Act
(Archer et al. 2012).

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References
Archer, R.J., Borthwick, K., Travers, M. and Ruschena, L., 2012. Whs: A Management Guide.
Cengage Learning.
Bahn, S. and Barratt-Pugh, L., 2012. Emerging issues of Health and Safety training delivery in
Australia: Quality and transferability. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 62, pp.213-222.
Cotlear, D., Nagpal, S., Smith, O., Tandon, A. and Cortez, R., 2015. Going universal: how 24
developing countries are implementing universal health coverage from the bottom up. World
Bank Publications.
Joint, P.C.B.U., Work Health Safety Policy Number: 7.1 Effective Date: 29 August 2012 Policy
Outline.
Macdonald, W., Driscoll, T., Stuckey, R. and Oakman, J., 2012. Occupational health and safety
in Australia. Industrial health, 50(3), pp.172-179.
Pouliakas, K. and Theodossiou, I., 2013. The economics of health and safety at work: an
interdiciplinary review of the theory and policy. Journal of Economic Surveys, 27(1), pp.167-
208.
Schaufeli, W.B. and Taris, T.W., 2014. A critical review of the Job Demands-Resources Model:
Implications for improving work and health. In Bridging occupational, organizational and
public health (pp. 43-68). Springer Netherlands.
Sekendiz, B., Norton, K.I., Keyzer, P., Dietrich, J., Coyle, I.R., Jones, V. and Finch, C.F., 2014.
An evaluation of emergency plans and procedures in fitness facilities in Australia: implications
for policy and practice. Global Risk Forum.

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Woolworths.com.au. (2018). {{metaController.metaData.title}}. [online] Available at:
https://www.woolworths.com.au/ [Accessed 5 Mar. 2018].