Safety is Everyone’s Business

You probably know that your employer has a responsibility to keep you safe at work, but do you know your responsibilities at work?

As an employee or contractor, you have specific work health and safety (WHS) duties.

Most areas will have a version of an Occupational Health and Safety Act. In general, these will suggest that you must:

  • take reasonable care for your own health and safety
  • take reasonable care for the health and safety of others who may be affected by their acts or omissions
  • cooperate with anything the employer does to comply with OHS requirements
  • not ‘intentionally or recklessly interfere with or misuse’ anything provided at the workplace for OHS.

It is important to note that health and safety has updated its definition in many places to include psychological health and safety and psychosocial hazards, that is, your mental and emotional health.

This means that while your employer is responsible for not putting you at risk of psychosocial hazards, you are also responsible for managing your own risk, and letting people know when your health and safety is at risk.

A psychosocial hazard is anything that could cause psychological harm. Common psychosocial hazards at work include:

  • job demands
  • low job control
  • poor support
  • lack of role clarity
  • poor organisation change management
  • inadequate reward and recognition
  • traumatic events or material
  • remote or isolated work
  • poor physical environment
  • violence and aggression
  • bullying
  • harassment, including sexual and gender-based harassment, and
  • conflict or poor workplace relationships and interactions.

Remember, you are not acting alone. Your employer is responsible for providing and maintaining a working environment that is safe and without risk to health, but you still have a legal responsibility to take care of yourself and not do anything that would affect the health and safety of others at work.

This means that you do have the right to refuse to do unsafe work. If asked to do something that you think may be unsafe, either physically or mentally, stop and talk to your supervisor or HR.

 

Reckless endangerment

Everyone also has a responsibility around reckless endangerment. In general, a person who, without lawful excuse recklessly engages in conduct that places or may place another person who is at a workplace in danger of serious injury is guilty of reckless endangerment. In some areas, reckless endangerment is an indicatable offence, which can incur a fine or even imprisonment.

Reckless endangerment applies to everyone – an employer, a worker, a designer, manufacturer, supplier or installer, even a member of the public.