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Quiz Questions And Answer On Work Health And Safety Assessment 2 Answer

Task 2  WHS Case Study

Scenario

Western Mining is a mining firm that mines coal in the Western Australian Outback. It employs more than 1000 workers at its site. The workforce includes machine operators, tradespeople and labourers, as well as engineers, designers, administrative staff and Site managers.

The company requires a detailed system of policies and procedures to cover the safety requirements associated with a diverse range of administrative and mining activities. Mining processes include using overhead cranes and trucks, excavation equipment, dozers, blasting equipment, power tools and cutting equipment.

The WHS system includes:

  1. Standard operating procedures for all machines and equipment, which outline:
  2. Training and skills assessments required before any workers is permitted to operate machinery
  3. Safe operation of machinery including wearing protective clothing and using safety guards
  4. The annual shut-down period for full assessment and repair of all equipment using and maintaining personal protective equipment (PPE)
  5. Storing and using hazardous substances ergonomic and repetitive work practices
  6. First-aid procedures and identifying first-aid officers in the worksite emergency evacuation procedures
  7. Formal procedures for:
  8. Identifying and reporting hazards
  9. Conducting WHS audits and safety inspections
  10. Conducting risk assessments and implementing risk controls

You are the site manager and you have just met with your senior manager about concerns that workers have regarding WHS on the site. Your work area has reported a number of near misses in the past three months and there have also been five lost time incidents in the past six months. The safety performance of your work area is declining steadily and you must urgently address this issue.

Suggest three actions you would take immediately to start addressing declining WHS performance in your area. Explain why these actions are appropriate and how they could improve WHS performance on the site.

Action 1

Action 2

  1. Identify any areas where you may require assistance from WHS experts or specialist resources. Why would you require this assistance and how could it help to improve WHS performance?
  2. Identify a range of workplace actions that could be implemented to enhance individual and team understanding of WHS responsibilities.
  3. Identify at least one improvement you could make on the current WHS procedure.
  4. Identify two methods you could use to assess the level of compliance with WHS legislative requirements and organisational policy and procedures in your work area. Why is this an important element of WHS performance?

Answer

ACTION 1

After viewing some recent scenarios at the mining site, it is decided that the WHS system needs to be more active, and it is required to take few steps to reduce the increasing accidents by each passing day. After reviewing the previous six months' report, it can be stated that nearly 25-30% of the casualties have taken place due to ignorance of the danger(Referred to the case study). The workers are here to work with high profit but not at the cause of their life. So the first action needs to be taken that an inspection team requires an inspection of 3 members after every 60 min for every working site of the area. The firm will hire a team of those who have excellent knowledge of safety rules and regulations and a better understanding of the WHS system (Subramanian, 2020). The workers need to report to the particular team members about any kind of disturbance. Apart from that, every worker has to be alert while working. This is the primary action that will help to reduce accidents and dangers on site. 

ACTION 2

The next action that needs to be taken is to appoint a particular person for each allotted project for that side, and the person will be responsible for looking after the project work. The appointed person will guide the inspection team to monitor the whole project site. The person will increase the awareness of the working labors to always be steady in the workplace. The person will inform every condition of the site to the supervising team after 60 min. This job will be a rotational job with each day a new person supervising. Apart from that, the lighting facility of the working site can be improved for better visualization for the workers (Health and Safety Authority, 2020). There are a few areas where the lights are too dim, which needs to be changed. One more step of this action is to provide permission for a little rest for the workers in the middle of the working hours. This will help them to get some relaxation and then again return to work.

ACTION 3

One of the most crucial actions that can be taken is to organize a training session for the workers before starting any project on-site, and it is required to provide some basic knowledge about the firm's WHS system. The precautions, dangers, and the aim of their work and project need to be discussed with the workers. A short meeting of 1 hour with the workers needs to be arranged to talk with the workers about the safety measurement, importance of safety, and some others (Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety, 2020). This will come exclusively from the supervising team.This will help the workers to be associated with the safety rules and steps and should follow them. It is required to make them understand through this talk that their safety is in their hand (Australianbusiness, 2020).

1. Identify any areas where you may require assistance from WHS experts or specialist resources. Why would you need this assistance, and how could it help to improve WHS performances?

There are some conditions where help and assistance from the experts of WHS are required. The help is required for constant educating purposes for the workers about the lessons of safety and the proper knowledge of the WHS system (Safe Work, 2020). It is often found that as the workers become regular, they tend to forget or rather ignore the safety measures. Often it is viewed by the site manager that in the absence of the supervisor, the workers ignore some essential facts like to wear PPE kit, and they become too casual to inform the team about a particular machine that may have problems. This is the field that needs to be looked after by the WHS expert and supervision team, and for that reason, the experts' assistance is required to maintain the WHS system. 

2. Identify a range of workplace actions that could be implemented to enhance individual and team understanding of WHS responsibilities.

According to the senior manager, it is required to implement some new techniques for the mining firm to enhance the understanding of the workers of the organization. The firm's three-dimensional modeling can be enforced to give the exact picture of the mining site (Wang et al. 2018). This will also help the team to explain the risky points of the work to the workers.This action will help make the team understand the areas where they need to work and how to allot time for each sector. This can serve the firm in both ways of enhancing safety and increase production level, and that will provide a clear pictureof the WHS responsibilities to the workers. Other such parallel implementations can be virtual reality and augmented reality, which will also help similarly to enhance the understanding of the team as well as the individuals.

3. Identify at least one improvement you could make on the current WHS procedure.

In the current WHS procedure, the improvement can be made in the workers' working timetable. It is often viewed thatthe workers' operating hours remain quite harsh for their health (Bao et al.2017). As it is entirely physical work, it is required to provide legitimate gaps between their working hours to improve the work. A tired worker can be dangerous for the site as often it is seen that this causes ignorance, and that leads toan accident. Apart from this, it is also required toprovidebasic knowledge of machines and tools to workers. This will help them to take the necessary steps in case of any emergency. This improvement can be taken in the WHS procedure.

4. Identify two methods you could use to assess the level of compliance with WHS legislative requirements and organizational policy and procedures in your work area. Why is this essential element of WHS performance?

Two methods that can be implemented to improve the level of compliance can be instrumentation and Bluetooth access or can also avail autonomous mines. The first method will help get access to tools from the working area and help the workers know what is going on in the field. The second one will reduce human resources, which can be used in a specific dangerous location. Less human resources will lead to less commotion and accidents. It is assumed that if these methods are implemented in the mining firm, then there is a possibility to improve the WHS system's performance and reduce accidents.

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