OHS – Safety Simplified

Safety simplified

Safety education and training is simple and accessible thanks to a partnership between SSAA and Action OHS Consulting.

If you attended the SSAA Convention held on Queensland’s Gold Coast, you might have caught a safety presentation by Phil Neville. Here, Phil, a senior consultant at Action OHS Consulting, provides a recap on how to manage health and safety risks at storage facilities. He discussed some simple health and safety management strategies for the storage industry.

Safety support and advice for members

SSAA has partnered with Action OHS Consulting to provide expert OHS advice and support for its members. This has meant developing a range of resources to help make safety education and training simple and accessible for members and their teams and some guidance via the OHS Help Desk. The safety resources include a health and safety manual template, safety training modules, and safe work instructions to help manage common workplace hazards. With guidance from the SSAA, we have also developed a suite of 10 online training modules to help you increase your and your employee/ worker’s knowledge of workplace health and safety. The training modules cover various topics such as safety inductions, hazard and risk management, incident reporting, injury management, return to work and ergonomics and manual handling. Each module contains a simple overview of the safety topic with case studies and examples relating to storage and includes access and links to supporting resources. While these modules are not mandatory, we recommend you complete them and allow time for your teams to complete them to help build a safety culture within your workplace. “With guidance from the SSAA, we have also developed a suite of 10 online training modules to help you increase your and your employee/ worker’s knowledge of workplace health and safety.

Safety training as an investment

There are many reasons to dedicate time and resources to training your staff and increasing your health and safety knowledge. Increased hazard and risk awareness and management through safety training can not only keep your people safe but also help protect you from prosecution in the event of injury or incident. It’s a legal obligation to provide information, instruction, and training under the various Acts. Introducing safety training and growing your knowledge can create a strong workplace culture. When employees see that you are dedicating time to safety, they know you take it seriously. This can also lead to better employee engagement, which can help reduce turnover and increase productivity. Some key strategies to help you build on and improve workplace safety at your storage facility include: l make safety a value within your organisation and commit to proactively managing risks in your workplace; l identify ways your people could get hurt at work and put things in place to control or eliminate the risk. Document this process. Phil Neville, Grad Dip. (OHSE), B. Engineering (Electrical) Phil has more than 10 years of experience in health and safety management,consulting, training and regulatory advice roles in various sectors. He is a Professional Member of the Australian Institute of Health andSafety (AIHS) and has extensive experience in high-risk industries (construction,infrastructure, utilities, mining).

l ensure safety roles and accountabilities have been allocated and communicated; l take advantage of the SSAA resources (Health and Safety Manual, Safe Work Instruction, and training modules); l embed safety into existing practices – don’t make it an ‘add-on’. Just integrate it into what you already do; l plan ahead – List all of the “safety” things you do (test/tag, emergency drills, workplace inspections) and ensure they get done; and l reach out if you need support.

We’re here to help

If you have a health and safety query, please do not hesitate to contact the OHS Help Desk.

The OH&S Help Desk has been established by the SSAA to support its members. This advisory service is free. Free call 1800 067 313 (Australia); 0800 444 356 (New Zealand); or email admin@selfstorage.com.au.