October is National Safe Work Month

October is National Safe Work Month and this year’s theme is: ‘Think Safe, Work Safe, Be Safe.’

Every worker has the right to feel safe at work and employers have a responsibility to ensure the workplace is an environment free from physical and psychological harm.

Every workplace is different, of course; the risks, potential hazards and health and safety practices will therefore vary, but there are some things that should be common across all workplaces in every sector. For instance, health and safety is everyone’s responsibility all the time.

Health and safety isn’t just about wearing the right gear or hanging up a bunch of posters. While the importance of these things shouldn’t be overlooked, health and safety is about much more. It’s something that needs to be thought about holistically and practiced constantly.

Think Safe

The best way to avoid safety incidents is to never have them. That may sound coy, but a lot of the best health and safety practices go unnoticed because they’re successful – and incidents never happen. But this requires planning and some foresight; it demands teamwork and communication to identify potential risks based on previous experiences and knowledge of the work environment. Regular health and safety meetings should be held to identify, discuss and address new risks.  

Work Safe

No workplace is entirely risk-free, but it’s important that there are health and safety measures in place to manage these risks. In industrial settings, this may include: ensuring everyone has the correct footwear and attire; making sure walkways are unobstructed; clearly labelling dangerous goods and regularly servicing machinery and equipment. It’s also important that all health and safety requirements and bulletins are communicated and understood by everyone, including workers who may not speak English as their first language.

Be Safe

Health and safety should never be an afterthought or something that becomes a focus only after a near miss of incident – that is too late. Safety is an on-going process: one that needs to be constantly interrogated, monitored, refined, improved and adjusted based on changes in the workplace. Implementing a rigorous workplace health and safety culture can be difficult because there is often pressure to do more, faster, which sometimes leads to cutting corners. But workplaces must prioritise health and safety above everything else – nothing is more important.

There are an infinite number of ways to talk and think about health and safety, but, at the end of the day, it all comes down to this: Each worker must be able to go to work and return home safely.