It is now a mandatory requirement of all employers (and employees) in Australia to be proactive in the management of safety issues in the workplace. Failure to do so now has significant impact both financially; in legal, lost time and return to work or rehabilitation costs; as well as personally, for both management or staff (and families), if an individual is found to have been negligent and contributed to the existence of an unsafe environment.
The AS/NZS 4801 standard has been specifically designed to provide organisations with a risk management approach to workplace safety that offers effective mechanisms for an organisation to identify, quantify, remove or reasonably reduce risks within the workplace.
A properly implemented safety management system, based on the abovementioned standard, provides a number of benefits to organisations, including increased confidence in management’s commitment to workplace safety, reduced costs associated with injury and lost time, and in many instances reduced insurance premiums.