Student ID: 2006881

Name: Aravind Sotala

Unit Code: SITXWHS001

Section A: skill activity

Q1.
Answer:
Observations regarding hazards and emergency situations in organization, when I went to
organization on Saturday at 10.00am, it takes nearly 3hrs to complete the observation, specified
below:

• ACTIONS :
➢ Inspection regarding hazards in organization
➢ Observation regarding emergency situations
➢ Making a total report of observations.
• OUTCOMES/OBSERVATIONS:
➢ Faulty installation of Machines
➢ Dangerous equipment in organization
➢ Power failures in emergency situation
➢ Due to failure of Machines, staff may get hurt
➢ Fire Explosion in Power room.
Q2:
Answer:
Observations regarding hazards and emergency situations, and also safety signs in
organization, when I went to organization on Saturday at 10.00am, it takes nearly 3hrs to
complete the observation, specified below:

• ACTIONS :
➢ Inspection regarding hazards in organization
➢ Observation regarding emergency situations
➢ Reporting of safety signs in organization
➢ Making a total report of observations.

• SAFETY SIGNS FOLLOWED:

➢ Organization clearly mapped out the high hazard areas
➢ Issued relevant danger signs to mitigate the occurrence of accidents
➢ Organization consist of No smoking labels to avoid fire accidents.
➢ It consists of enough signs with clear instructions pf steps to follow during
emergencies.
Q3:
Answer:

Workplace accidents can have a negative impact on a business in many ways. If serious
enough, they can result in a loss of productivity, reduced staff morale, increased absenteeism,
and even temporary or permanent closure.

According to research from Safe Work Australia, 106,260 people lodged a serious claim in 2016-
17, costing small businesses a median of $11,500 per claim. These incidents also represented
a median of 5.6 weeks in lost productivity per claim.

For this reason, it’s important that staff and employers work together to take reasonable steps
to reduce work-related injuries, and to maintain a consistent record of each injury as they occur in
the form of an accident record.

Reporting an Accident at Work

You may not be able to prevent accidents from happening at work but, if they do happen, you
must handle them lawfully and wisely.

To do that, you must keep a record of every workplace accident (often called a ‘Register of
Injuries’). This must be available at all times, and each report should contain the following
information:

• Name of worker/s
• Worker’s occupation or job title
• Time and date of injury
• Exact location of the worker at the time of injury
• Exact description of how the injury was sustained
• If any treatment was provided to the injured, and if so, what kind of treatment
• Nature of injury and the body part/s affected
• Names of people who witnessed the incident take place
• Date of entry in the register
• Name of person making the entry

Anyone injured at work, including direct worker, agency employee, contractor, customer or
visitor, must be on the register of injuries. Always store personal data carefully in line with
privacy law.

You must also review the incident to find out whether there are steps you could take to stop it
from happening again. A serious injury, or risk to plant and equipment, will need a more in-depth
investigation.

What constitutes a Work Health and Safety Incident or Accident?

A workplace incident is any event that exposes a worker or any other person to a serious risk to
that person’s health or safety.
Different types of injuries and illnesses can be sustained from a workplace incident. According
to the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW) a serious injury or illness of a person isn’t illness
or injury that requires:

• immediate medical treatment in a hospital

• Immediate treatment for:
• The amputation of a persons’ body part
• Serious head injury
• Serious eye injury
• Major burn
• Separation of skin from underlying tissue
• Spinal injury
• Loss of certain bodily functions
• Serious lacerations
• Any infections transmitted to a person as a result of them carrying out work-related
activities
• Medical treatment within 48 hours of exposure to a substance

Investigating a Workplace Incident

Not all workplace incidents are serious enough to warrant an investigation. Once an incident
report has been sent to the relevant work health and safety regulator, they will assess the
following factors to determine if they should carry out an incident investigation:

• Severity, or potential severity of the incident

• Number of people involved in the incident
• Level of risk
• Complexity of the situation and amount of factors involved

If the incident is serious enough, the local supervisor or manager – in cooperation with an expert
from the relevant work health and safety regulator – must carry out a formal incident
investigation procedure to:

• Determine all contributing factors to the incident – whether it was an accident, near-miss,
or a hazard.
• Record all relevant details about the incident to support an insurance claim, workers’
compensation claim, or common law proceeding.
• Comply with the applicable legislative requirements
• Implement changes to eliminate or reduce the risk of the same incident happening
again.

During the investigation you must collect relevant information from anyone who was involved in
the incident. While you may receive some of this information in the Register of Injuries, you will
need to conduct face-to-face interviews so you can piece together the sequence of events that
led to the incident.

After you collect this information, you must uncover the cause of the incident and come up with
reasonable recommendations to address the contributing factors of the incident to eliminate or
reduce the risk of further injury.
 Section B

Q1:
Answer:
• Actions that must be adhered to by employees:
➢ Follow Queensland Government's business health and safety resources for
Hazard or emergency situation, including posters and signage for your workplace
➢ Take Action regarding Safe Work Australia's information for workplaces
toolkit, industry information
➢ Follow the Australian Department of Health's alerts, advice and resources
➢ Consider the rules and regulations of Australian Department of Home Affairs.

• Employer Responsibilities:

It is your duty as an employer to provide your employees with a safe and healthy work
environment. Under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 you must assess risks and
implement and review control measures to prevent or minimise exposure to these risks.

To properly manage exposure to risks, you must:

➢ identify workplace hazards

➢ determine who might be harmed, and how
➢ decide on control measures
➢ put controls in place
➢ review the controls regularly.
• Employee Responsibilities to participate in WHS practices:

The Occupational Health and Safety Act entitles all employees to three fundamental rights:

➢ The right to know about health and safety matters.

➢ The right to participate in decisions that could affect their health and safety.

➢ The right to refuse work that could affect their health and safety and that of others.
 • Employee Responsibility to ensure safety of self and other workers:

As a worker, you must take reasonable care of yourself and not do anything that would
affect the health and safety of others at work.

You must follow any reasonable health and safety instructions from your employer. It is
important that you:
➢ work safely
➢ follow instructions
➢ ask if you’re not sure how to safely perform the work
➢ use personal protective equipment (PPE) in the way you were trained and
instructed to use it
➢ report injuries and unsafe and unhealthy situations to your supervisor or to
your health and supervisory representative (HSR).

• Ramifications of failure to observe OHS or WHS legislation:

A breach to work health and safety law in Queensland occurs either when:
➢ a person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU), or a senior officers'
conduct, negligently causes the death of a worker
➢ an action is taken that places a person at risk of injury, illness or death
➢ steps are not taken to avoid a risky situation from occurring
➢ there is a failure to comply with regulatory requirements.
➢ Examples: exposing workers to the risk of excessive noise, working at heights
where the risk of falling is not controlled, allowing unlicensed operators to use
specified equipment etc.,

Categories of offences

There are 4 categories of offences for failing to comply with a health and safety duty
under the WHS Act or an electrical safety duty under the ES Act, depending on the degree of
seriousness or liability involved.

Industrial manslaughter—the highest penalty under either the WHS Act or the ES Act is for
industrial manslaughter where a PCBU, or a senior officer, negligently causes the death of a
worker.

Where a PCBU, or senior officer, commits industrial manslaughter, a maximum penalty of

20 years imprisonment for an individual or $10 million for a body corporate applies.

Category 1—the next highest penalty under either the WHS Act or the ES Act is for a
category 1 offence. These are serious breaches where a duty holder recklessly endangers a
person to risk of death or serious injury. Offences involving reckless conduct will be prosecuted
in the District Court.

• Corporation: up to $3 million
• Individual as a person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU) or an officer: up to
$600,000/5 years jail
• Individual (e.g. a worker): up to $300,000/5 years jail.
Category 2—failure to comply with a health and safety duty or electrical safety duty that
exposes a person to risk of death, serious injury or illness. Offences will be prosecuted in the
Magistrates Court.

• Corporation: up to $1.5 million

• Individual as a PCBU or an officer: up to $300,000
• Individual (e.g. a worker): up to $150,000.

Category 3—failure to comply with a health and safety duty or electrical safety duty. Offences
will be prosecuted in the Magistrates Court.

• Corporation: up to $500,000
• Individual as a PCBU or an officer: up to $100,000
• Individual (e.g. a worker): up to $50,000.

Failure to pay

Not paying the fine can lead to further enforcement action including:

• redirection of wages or funds from a bank account

• issuing of a warrant for the seizure and sale of property
• suspension of the debtor's driver's licence until the debt is satisfied
• registration of the debt for enforcement interstate
• issuing an arrest and imprisonment warrant.
Q2:
Answer:
“COVID-19”
Introduction:

A pandemic is a rapidly spreading infectious disease that may pose a global threat. Pandemics
can create social and economic chaos. They can severely upset business operations by
disrupting the supply chain and causing high absenteeism. This may impede your ability to
deliver products and services to your customers.

Managing the threats posed by a pandemic is critical for business survival. A business
continuity plan can help you manage the impacts of a pandemic and meet your legal obligations
to staff to ensure their safety.

Your business continuity plan will detail your business's risk management strategy and business
impact analysis. It will describe how your business intends to respond to an incident, sets out a
recovery plan and defines policies and procedures for managing staff and communication.

Workplace Hazards and associated health, safety and security risks:

A pandemic is a widespread infectious disease that spreads quickly and widely among
human or animal populations.

Pandemics often relate to a virus such as the Covid-19. Animals frequently develop new
viruses and when an animal virus combines with a human one, humans can become ill.
Because the virus is new, most of the host population can become highly susceptible to
infection.

Impact of Covid-19 in workplace:

When someone who has COVID-19 coughs or exhales they release droplets of infected fluid.
Most of these droplets fall on nearby surfaces and objects - such as desks, tables or
telephones. People could catch COVID-19 by touching contaminated surfaces or objects – and
then touching their eyes, nose or mouth. If they are standing within one meter of a person with
COVID-19 they can catch it by breathing in droplets coughed out or exhaled by them. In other
words, COVID-19 spreads in a similar way to flu. Most persons infected with COVID-19
experience mild symptoms and recover. However, some go on to experience more serious
illness and may require hospital care. Risk of serious illness rises with age: people over 40
seem to be more vulnerable than those under 40. People with weakened immune systems and
people with conditions such as diabetes, heart and lung disease are also more vulnerable to
serious illness.

Simple ways to Prevent the spread of COVID 19 in your workplace :

The low-cost measures below will help prevent the spread of infections in your workplace, such
as colds, flu and stomach bugs, and protect your customers, contractors and employees.
➢ Employers should start doing these things now, even if COVID-19 has not arrived in the
communities where they operate. They can already reduce working days lost due to
illness and stop or slow the spread of COVID-19 if it arrives at one of your workplaces.
• Make sure your workplaces are clean and hygienic
• Surfaces (e.g. desks and tables) and objects (e.g. telephones, keyboards) need to be
wiped with disinfectant regularly
• Why? Because contamination on surfaces touched by employees and customers is one
of the main ways that COVID-19 spreads
➢ Promote regular and thorough hand-washing by employees, contractors and customers :
• Put sanitizing hand rub dispensers in prominent places around the workplace. Make
sure these dispensers are regularly refilled
• Display posters promoting hand-washing – ask your local public health authority for
these or look.
• Combine this with other communication measures such as offering guidance from
occupational health and safety officers, briefings at meetings and information on the
intranet to promote hand-washing
• Make sure that staff, contractors and customers have access to places where they can
wash their hands with soap and water
• Why? Because washing kills the virus on your hands and prevents the spread of
COVID19
➢ Promote good respiratory hygiene in the workplace :
• Display posters promoting respiratory hygiene. Combine this with other
communication measures such as offering guidance from occupational health and
safety officers, briefing at meetings and information on the intranet etc.
• Ensure that face masks1 and / or paper tissues are available at your workplaces,
for those who develop a runny nose or cough at work, along with closed bins for
hygienically disposing of them
• Why? Because good respiratory hygiene prevents the spread of COVID-19
➢ Advise employees and contractors to consult national travel advice before going on
business trips.
➢ Brief your employees, contractors and customers that if COVID-19 starts spreading in
your community anyone with even a mild cough or low-grade fever (37.3 C or more)
needs to stay at home. They should also stay home (or work from home) if they have
had to take simple 1 Ordinary surgical face masks rather than N95 face masks 3
medications, such as paracetamol/acetaminophen, ibuprofen or aspirin, which may
mask symptoms of infection:
• Keep communicating and promoting the message that people need to stay at
home even if they have just mild symptoms of COVID-19.
• Display posters with this message in your workplaces. Combine this with other
communication channels commonly used in your organization or business.
• Your occupational health services, local public health authority or other partners
may have developed campaign materials to promote this message
• Make clear to employees that they will be able to count this time off as sick
leave.
 Section: C
Question1:
Answer:
Use of predetermined health, safety and security procedures and safe work practices in work
functions:
➢ Designated areas for smoking:
In most of the organizations, there were a separate designated areas for smoking to
avoid the fire explosion in organization.
➢ Outbreak of COVID 19:
In recent times COVID 19 spreads in areas where group of people discussing on any
subject matter, it results in heavy spread to all employees in workplace. So, we should
maintain a social distance among co-employees and use sanitizer and other preventive
health measures.
➢ Use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE):
When It is necessary to enter into danger areas in organization, there must be a person
who contains PPE on his hands.

Question 2:
Answer:
Here are the following procedures to be followed in an emergency situation:
➢ Check whether have a working and effective alerting system, if available alert all
the employees.
➢ Have an assigned emergency preparedness manager or leader for particular
emergency from our organization.
➢ Get to know where emergency equipment and first aid kits are located
➢ Be aware of Emergency and evacuation plans and know where the emergency
exit are
Question 3:
Answer:
Based on my Observation, Objective of the WHS Management can be achieved by
following the below specified steps:
➢ Identifying Hazards which could result in work related injury or illness
➢ Assessing the type, severity and likelihood of injuries and illness
➢ Providing appropriate first aid equipment, facilities and training
➢ Reviewing first and requirements on a regular basis or
➢ Other Methods etc.,