Most organisations combine their environmental management with occupational health and safety responsibilities. Yet the majority of businesses we talk to do not have an up-to-date Environmental Policy. To help you write your own Environmental Policy here are three easy steps to follow:

Step One

State your commitment at the highest management level. The strength and value of a policy is assessed by the signature at the bottom. Nothing is better than the CEO or owner level sign off to ensure everyone takes this seriously. Make sure all staff are involved and that responsibilities are clearly outlined. The policy and how it affects the business should be communicated widely.

Step Two

Be clear how business activities impact the environment. Review all activities as well as issues that you are already tackling. An environmental audit will help you to identify the full range of issues. Ensure you take into account all relevant regulations or standards whether or not you are legally compliant with them. Look for areas of non-compliance where you can set targets for improvement.

Step Three

Set out the framework for solving or addressing the impacts you have identified. Be realistic with your targets – some areas of improvement will need to be managed over a longer period. One tip is to divide each area of risk into specific objectives. Each objective can then be further detailed in other documents like the business plan. The aim should be to set out a policy for continuous improvement. Targets and the policy itself should be reviewed regularly Just having an environmental policy will mean little unless it is kept up to date.

If you would like to see what a typical policy looks here’s a sample that you’re welcome to download and use: Sample Environmental Policy.

The following extract has been taken from the Safety Concepts E-Guide OHS Secrets for Small Business:

Determining a Consultation Mechanism Within Your Organisation.

Basically, how are you going to consult with your workforce to agree on OHS issues? Will you talk with each member individually? Will you consult with them through Safety Meetings?

Consultation on the subject of promoting a safe and healthy work environment, with all people in your workplace is good management. The ‘team approach’ that the government legislation steers the consultation process towards creates effective communication, improves productivity and morale, and creates a sense of ownership for all involved.

Consultations with your workers are your chance to put together a sound OHS Policy and procedures that are practical and which everyone agrees upon. After all, what would be the use of putting together work and safety procedures for your workers if:

• they don’t agree with the policies and therefore aren’t motivated to apply them
• the policies are far from practical because they were designed by administration or someone who has never used certain equipment in the warehouse before, or has never sat at a table inputting data into a computer, hour after hour
• they simply don’t know about the policies to begin with!

You need to develop a policy for OHS Consultation and communicate this policy to all employees. Failure to consult is a criminal offence that can carry a significant fine.

Make sure you maintain adequate records in relation to consulting with your employees about health and safety in the workplace.

Other Policies that your workplace may benefit from having in place are:

• No Smoking Policy
• Drugs and Alcohol Policy
• Behaviour Policy
• Environmental Policy
• Rehabilitation Policy
• Return to Work Policy

Health and Safety

There is little doubt that bullying seems to be heading for the position of number one contender for the greatest negative health and safety cost in terms of physical and/or psychological hazards. 

Whilst all States and Territories have been upping the ante in relation to safer workplaces, the inclusion of bullying with the same level of focus might have national benefits.

It is interesting to note that the current moves to harmonise health and safety laws across Australia.  This could have interesting ramifications and implications for all States and Territories as they develop common meanings and understanding of health and safety related issues such as workplace bullying.

Changes to compliance and penalty regimes could mean that workplace bullying offences are pursued through higher courts such as District Courts, and be heard before a jury. Depending on the nature and circumstances of the workplace bullying incident, there is a possibility that a person convicted under a Category One level could face imprisonment of up to five years. No doubt this will create an environment where organisations will need to think seriously about how they detect, respond and resolve bullying allegations.

If executive officers believe they are at risk of imprisonment, they might be interested in being proactive in preventing, detecting and resolving workplace bullying.

Some organisations are adopting a zero harm approach in relation to health and safety, but some may not have linked the negative impact of workplace bullying to physical injuries or harm. 

What happens when a person is so traumatised by being bullied and they are involved in a physical incident that results in death or serious injuries? Will the investigation look at all the causal and contributing factors to determine state of mind and fitness for duty?

Training to assist managers and supervisors in the identification of ‘at risk’ personnel may be some of the best proactive measures organisations could and should take to meet duty of care obligations in providing safe work environments.

As training budgets are cut in all areas, but particularly in the area of health and safety, it may become harder for executive officers to demonstrate their commitment to health and safety and how they are meeting the legislative obligations in relation to safe working environments.

Uniformity

As indicated previously, the lack of a national uniform approach has negative impacts across business and society. Different Courts, Commissions and Tribunals are used in the resolution processes. Given that bullying is a complex issue requiring complex solutions, Courts, Commissions or Tribunals are often required to hear ‘experts’ so that a determination can be made. 

It is important for those involved in a workplace bullying incident to understand that the legal processes may be a contributing factor in achieving a resolution. For some the resolution may not be what they want and they have to reach a compromise that they are not entirely happy with.

Bullying incidents can involve breaches of contracts, non compliance with policy and procedures, or people simply being nasty to others.  It is important that individuals at all levels understand the changing trends and issues associated with workplace bullying Court, Commission or Tribunal decisions.

Silo approaches in organisations and across organisations engaged in the same industry may result in information not being shared. Consequently, when a Court, Commission or Tribunal decision is made, the results might not be shared. If the information was shared, it might result in a further incident being prevented.

Reasonable Management

What is reasonable to one is unreasonable to another. Some management decisions can be construed as unreasonable when in reality; decisions are made in good faith. 

The law in relation to reasonable and reasonableness is subject to interpretation and hence confusion on the part of managers and other employees. 

Whilst Codes of Practice attempt to give guidance, other decision makers within the injury claims process may have different understandings or interpretations.

It can also become an issue when a Government Department issues a Code of Practice with an outline of what is believed to be the core components of reasonable management, only to find that another area such as one that might make decisions about workplace injury claims has a different interpretation.

Safety Incentive and Injury Discipline Policies: The Bad, the Worse and the Downright Ugly

Workers face increasing obstacles in achieving safe and healthy workplaces. In an effort to save money and keep OSHA away, employers are armed with a bag of tricks to intimidate workers and prevent them from reporting injuries. These include, but may not be limited to, safety incentive programs, injury discipline policies and other gimmicks that focus entirely on workers’ behavior to make a workplace safe.

Safety Incentive Programs

• In a Washington state workplace, workers were offered three tokens worth $1.00 each for every month they went without reporting carpal tunnel syndrome, heat stress or any other work-related injury or illness. More tokens were offered quarterly if the entire workforce did not report an injury or illness.
• A Midwestern industrial firm invited all workers who did not report a job injury or illness for the year to an annual banquet. There, the name of a banquet attendee was pulled out of a hat; that person left with a check for $10,000.
• At a Northeastern construction site, monies are made available on a periodic basis to contractors who have low injury rates; that money is then divided among the contractor’s workers who did not report injuries.

These types of ‘safety incentive’ programs have been around for a long time; today they are an increasingly popular part of employers’ so-called safety efforts. They are as damaging now as they were when they first began appearing decades ago.

The theory that supposedly underlies these programs is that workers’ unsafe behaviors are to blame for workplace injuries and illnesses. Under this theory, providing prizes and rewards will encourage workers to behave safely on the job and therefore not get injured. Absent in this ‘blame the worker’ theory is the role that hazardous workplace conditions play in job-related injury, illness and death.

It is in employers’ interests to hold to such worker-blaming theories and provide rewards to workers when they do not report injuries. Here is what employers get from this deal:

• The fewer injuries and illnesses that workers report, the lower the number of OSHA recordables that must be entered on a company’s OSHA 200 log of worksite injuries and illnesses. The lower the injury rate on a firm’s log, the lower the chance that an employer will be targeted by OSHA for an inspection.
• When workers don’t report injuries and illnesses as work-related, they also may not file a workers’ compensation claim and/or may be denied a future claim for that injury. This in turn can reduce an employer’s workers’ compensation premiums and payments.

Harming Workers and Jeopardizing Worksite Safety

While employers save money and can escape OSHA scrutiny, workers and workplaces suffer from the presence of these ‘safety incentive’ programs:

• When workers are discouraged from reporting work-related injuries and illnesses, they may not receive early diagnosis and treatment of their ailments, as well as the compensation they deserve.
• When job injuries and illnesses are not reported, the hazards on the worksite that caused them are not identified and targeted for elimination or correction. Hazards in today’s worklaces that cause or contribute to job injury, illness and death include toxic chemicals; unguarded machines; understaffing; improperly designed tools, equipment and workstations; fatigue from long work hours; heavy work loads; rapid pace of work; production pressures and a myriad of other safety, chemical, biological, and physical and work organization factors. Hazards that are not eliminated or reduced will continue to hurt or maim additional workers.

What Does OSHA Think of These Programs?
 
A recent OSHA study that included a ‘literature review’ of safety incentive programs concluded that there is no basis for employer claims that programs that provide prizes to workers who don’t report injuries actually make workplaces safer. The OSHA study also commented on the “chilling effect” that these programs have on workers’ willingness to report job injuries and illnesses.

OSHA has also cited and fined a company under the OSHA recordkeeping standard for having a safety incentive program that discouraged workers from reporting injuries and illnesses.

Injury Discipline Policies

• In a manufacturing plant in Oklahoma where there was an epidemic of back and repetitive strain injuries, all workers who reported an injury received a letter from the company stating, ‘It is your responsibility to perform your job in a safe manner to ensure that you are not a safety hazard to yourself and others. To remain in the employment of Company XXX your safety performance must become satisfactory to management. If you are involved in another unsafe act while at work, management will investigate the incident as well as your safety performance and will determine the status of your employment, which may include discipline up to and including discharge.’
• After an Ohio company received a $290,000 OSHA fine for lack of fall protection, electrical hazards and repeat lock-out/tag-out violations, a number of employer policies were instituted that threatened workers with discipline and drug testing if they reported any work-related injuries or illnesses.

Even more sinister is the other side of the ‘safety incentive’ coin: employer policies (like those above) that threaten and deliver discipline to workers who report job injuries and illnesses.

The same flawed theory underlies these policies: that it is workers’ unsafe acts rather than hazardous workplace conditions that cause job injuries and illnesses. Injury discipline policies literally add insult to injury. Rather than identifying root causes of occupational injuries and illnesses and addressing safety, chemical, biological, physical and work organization hazards, workers are blamed and punished for reporting their injuries.
 
Programs like these can be extremely effective in ending the reporting – not the experience – of work-related injuries and illnesses. The safety of workers and workplaces then suffer the same consequences as those mentioned earlier in the section on safety incentive programs.

Safety Incentive and Injury Discipline Programs:  Worksite Hazards to be Eliminated

Safety incentive programs that provide prizes or cash to workers if they do not report a work-related injury or illness, and deny such rewards to workers who do report; and injury discipline policies that threaten and deliver discipline to workers who report their injuries and illnesses, are, in and of themselves, worksite safety and health hazards that need to be eliminated.

Thanks to AFL-CIO for their permission to use this material. It certainly is an eye-opener on what goes on in the Health and Safety arena in the US.