Today, every organisation is aware of their responsibility to provide a safe workplace, and the majority has a health and safety policy to back this up. However, there is often a gap in knowledge around how well the company is actually performing in this area—and that’s where safety metrics can have a big impact.

According to the WHS Act, organisations are legally obligated to protect both their employees’ physical and psychological health. In other words, just as organisations must do what is reasonably practical to eliminate and reduce the risk of physical hazards, the same must be done for psychological hazards. 

When it comes to workplace health and safety, risk management involves identifying potential hazards, assessing the risks of those hazards and putting appropriate control measures in place to eliminate or reduce the risks. The work doesn’t stop there however. After control measures have been implemented, every workplace has an obligation to do their best to make sure they remain effective and to review them on an ongoing basis.

There’s no doubt that managing occupational health and safety (OHS) is challenging in any workplace—but the aged care sector presents a series of unique circumstances that require prompt and effective management for compliance. 

In the workplace, organisations are required to manage hazards and risks by putting the appropriate control measures in place. Legally, under WHS Regulations, "risks must be controlled by eliminating them so far as reasonably practicable, or if this is not possible, reducing the risks that remain so far as reasonably practicable" (Source: WorkSafe Australia). This means that health and safety managers, or anyone who is responsible for making sure a business is in compliance with these regulations, must determine what is reasonably practicable to protect people from harm.