Introduction
The general purpose of health and safety meetings is to create and provide a forum whereby issues and incidents involving health and safety can be discussed by staff members at all levels of %The_Company%, to ensure that those issues are managed to a standard which complies with the HSWA.
There are two main types of safety meeting: Health and Safety Committee meetings and Toolbox meetings.
The attendance at and topics discussed in both cases must be recorded and documented. The HSWA in Section 66 requires businesses to establish and hold regular meetings at no greater than three monthly intervals. They must also maintain a Health and Safety Committee in certain situations:
“The following persons may request that the PCBU at a workplace establish a health and safety committee for the business or undertaking or part of the business or undertaking:
(a) a health and safety representative for a work group of workers carrying out work at that workplace; or
(b) 5 or more workers at that workplace.
The PCBU must, within 2 months of receiving a request, decide whether to establish a health and safety committee for the business or undertaking or part of the business or undertaking.”
Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 Part 3 s66 ss1
Health and Safety Committee
The structure of a normal Health and Safety Committee includes:
- The Health and Safety Representative – They are responsible for running the meeting. It is also their responsibility to monitor any measures taken by management, regarding Health and Safety.
- Management Representative(s) – Their role is to ensure the management’s business objectives are included in the discussions and decisions of the committee. They are also required to ensure that adequate resources are available for health and safety. This role is generally appointed by the management of %The_Company%.
- Staff Representatives – Their role is to bring staff health and safety related issues for discussion and resolution at the meeting. Ideally, these people are volunteers or are nominated and elected by the staff, however in the absence of volunteers they can be invited to attend by the management.
- Union Representatives (if applicable) – They must be included in the meeting to further represent staff. Health and safety professionals may also be included in the committee membership, at the approval of the committee members.
Health and Safety Meetings
All meetings must be recorded, and those minutes freely circulated to the staff.
Use the form on Page 2.2 to record the meeting.
OHS Meetings should be held at regular intervals e.g., the third Thursday of the month at 10:30am, and may be held monthly, bi-monthly or at the very least quarterly. Frequency may depend on items for discussion. All employees and (sub)contractors must attend regular safety meetings to discuss OHS issues.
When working on other company’s sites, a safety meeting should be held prior to commencement of work, and then weekly. Should there be any significant event within the project, this would also require an additional meeting. These are generally referred to as Toolbox meetings. Use the safety meeting sheet for these. All employees and (sub)contractors must attend regular toolbox, pre-start, and safety meetings where OHS issues can be communicated.
Incidents are to be discussed at safety meetings (for incident reporting and investigation see page 3.1/2) to review how they happened, did they involve a significant risk and has the situation been resolved? Incident data is to be collated during each meeting (or at least annually) to see if there have been any trends, and if so to implement initiatives for injury prevention, where applicable.
It is important that these meetings are held in an environment where the objective is to find solutions which make the workplace safer. It is valuable to discuss findings from site inspections during safety meetings, as an agenda item.