Understanding how to achieve effective work health and safety (WHS) management is complex.  Also, when we start to think about WHS, it could mean many different things to different people.  This chapter is designed to help you understand some key concepts in WHS by exploring some of its complexities and defining important terms. This will set you up to explore theories that try to explain why certain approaches are useful, while others lead to serious injuries for workers.

Defining WHS

What is WHS management?  In it’s simplest sense, WHS management comprises the actions employers undertake to ensure a safe workplace for workers.

Figure 4.1: Workplace health and safety terminology

Source: Lynnaire Sheridan, CC BY-SA 4.0

There is a lot of technical terminology involved in WHS management (see Figure 4.1); let’s cover the basics. The World Health Organization defines work (occupational) health and safety as “all aspects of health and safety in the workplace…[with a] strong focus on primary prevention of hazards” (World Health Organization, n.d., para. 1) where, health is “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (World Health Organization, 1946, p. 1).  What then is a hazard?  A hazard may be defined as “anything with the potential to harm life, health or property” (Dunn, 2012, p. 53).

WHS management is then any action taken by responsible parties to ensure a healthy and safe workplace. This means protecting the people, plant, and environment from hazards that potentially could cause harm. In simple terms, it can be considered to be the approaches, processes, tools and techniques used by organisations to keep their workers safe so they can achieve their work.  Notably, taking into account the World Health Organizations definition of ‘health’, WHS is not just preventing illness or injury, but proactively helping workers to be, and stay, well.

What then does ‘safety’ mean in this WHS management context?  Safety is a “state in which the risk of harm (to persons) or damage is limited to an acceptable level” where risk is defined as the “likelihood and consequence of injury or harm occurring” (Standards Australia & Standards New Zealand, 2001, p. 5).  This means that an employer is only expected to manage health and safety to an ‘acceptable level’ of risk for injury or harm to occur to their workers—that which is reasonably practicable or “reasonably able to be done” (Safe Work Australia, 2023, part 18).

While WHS has traditionally been about health and safety in a ‘workplace’, the notion of ‘ workplace’ is changing and evolving over time.  To address this, the focus and responsibility is placed on a PCBU, a person conducting a business or undertaking (NZ Parliament, 2015; Safe Work Australia, 2023).  WorkSafe New Zealand explains,  “a PCBU may be an individual person or an organisation.  This does not include workers or officers of PCBUs, volunteer associations, or home occupiers that employ or engage a tradesperson to carry out residential work” (WorkSafe, 2019, p. 4).  This shift towards PCBUs being responsible for workers, rather than a workplace, means PCBUs are responsible for managing worker health and safety wherever workers are engaged in work.

Who then is a ‘worker’?  A worker is a person undertaking work for a PCBU (Safe Work Australia, 2023).  Notably, a worker does not have to be an employee—contractors, sub-contractors, interns and, in certain situations, volunteers are all considered workers (NZ Parliament, 2015; Safe Work Australia, 2023).

Note: While notionally the same, there are some nuanced differences between Australia and New Zealand legislated definitions of a worker so it is important to follow the legislation that applies in your jurisdiction.

In summary, WHS management is designed to keep workers (people who undertake work for a PCBU ) in good health (not just unharmed) and safe (to an acceptable, reasonably practicable, level) from any foreseeable hazards that could present as they undertake their work.  However, what should a PCBU actually manage?

Managing WHS

What WHS management comprises for a PCBU, in any given context, is determined by the legislation that applies in that jurisdiction, the existence or adequacy of WHS regulators and, very importantly, the attitude of the organisation and its people towards WHS (safety culture).

Managing worker health

In most legal contexts, PCBU WHS responsibilities extend to occupational diseases (health) and workplace incidents (safety).  Let’s start with occupational disease which is “any illness associated with a particular occupation or industry.  Such diseases result from a variety of biological, chemical, physical, and psychological factor that are present in the work environment or are otherwise encountered in the course of employment” (Kazantzis, 2022, para. 1).  From a WHS perspective, these diseases are preventable through the control of employee exposure to the hazards that cause disease (Kazantzis, 2022).

While some occupational disease can occur through immediate exposure, detection of most occupational disease is done via occupational epidemiology which is the investigation of the occurrence of disease and clusters of impacted people having their exposure linked back to specific workplaces or industries (Merletti et al., 2014).  It can take many years to identify the hazard associated with an illness, given it requires accumulated exposure over time before it presents as disease in a worker.  For example, asbestos was first industrially manufactured in the 1880s with the first recorded case of asbestosis disease being documented in 1906.  Many deaths subsequently occurred before, in the 1970s, there was enough epidemiological evidence to conclude that asbestos was a carcinogen (cancer causing) and that those working with asbestos were at most risk (Lemen et al., 1980).  The need for long-term, epidemiological evidence, means that occupational disease identification is often beyond what is reasonably practicable for an individual HR practitioner or their organisation; to identify and control these hazards requires collaboration between public health agencies, WHS regulators and specialists in occupational health (Ahrens et al., 2014).  The United State’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “the nation’s leading science-based, data-driven, service organization that protects the public’s health” (CDC, 2023a, para 1.), is a public health entity that incorporates worker health in its remit.  The CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) operates through partnerships with employers to enhance worker health outcomes (CDC, 2023b).

If you have ever had a workplace medical examination, or you schedule these regularly for your employees, these are likely part of a health monitoring initiative designed to identify any early-onset symptoms of occupational disease but may also be seeking to identify repetitive strain injuries (WorkSafe, 2022).  In this aspect of occupational health, you would be likely to work with ergonomists, “someone who studies the design of furniture or equipment and the way this affects people’s ability to work effectively” (Cambridge Dictionary, 2023a, para. 1), to ensure office set up avoids the poor posture or unnecessary movements leading to strain injuries. However, if someone incurs a workplace illness or strain injury, or you wish to employ someone already living with a disability, you will likely collaborate with an occupational therapist who will make reasonable adjustments:

The concept of reasonable adjustments reflects the understanding that a worker with an injury, ill health or disability can often perform tasks if adjustments are made to accommodate the effects of their injury, ill health or disability.  The aim of any reasonable adjustment is to minimise the impact of the injury, health problem or disability to enable the worker to fully take part in work-related programs and effectively undertake the inherent requirements of their job. (ComCare, 2013, para. 1)

Where an illness or injury is temporary, return to work plans will be designed with occupational therapists to enable the worker to return to work in a reduced or different capacity that, over time,  ideally will see them return to good health and their full original work role (Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, 2022).  Reasonable adjustment is also important when employing a person already living with a disability:

Reasonable adjustments are changes an employer makes to remove or reduce a disadvantage related to someone’s disability. For example: making changes to the workplace, changing someone’s working arrangements, finding a different way to do something, providing equipment, services or support. Reasonable adjustments are specific to an individual person. They can cover any area of work. (Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, 2022, para. 1)

Considerations for this cohort of workers is often also addressed in legislation relating to disability discrimination (Mason, 2017).

As you can see, occupational injury tends to involve HR managers more than occupational disease control.  Often it is these WHS practitioners who become embedded, or at least quite closely affiliated, with HR departments within organisations.  The following Contemporary WHS challenge explores how HR and occupational therapists can collaborate together to address the transition to retirement for workers who experience the emergence of dementia symptoms in the workplace.

Managing worker safety

Prevention of workplace incidents of any scale is a strong focus of day-to-day WHS management in organisations.  In the WHS context, “an incident is an unplanned event or chain of events that results in losses such as fatalities or injuries, damage to assets, equipment, the environment, business performance or company reputation” (Wolters Kluwer, n.d., para. 1).  It is important to distinguish an incident from an accident which is defined as “something bad that happens that is not expected or intended and that often damages something or injuries someone” (Cambridge Dictionary, 2023b, para. 1) or “something that happens by chance or without expectation; an event that is without apparent or deliberate” (Oxford English Dictionary, n.d., para. 6).  Both appear very similar, but what distinguishes them is that, under the law, accidents are considered Acts of God: “The operation of uncontrollable natural forces, an instance or result of such forces, frequently in the context of insurance” (Oxford Dictionary, n.d., para. 3)—they are uncontrollable—whereas incidents, with effective WHS management, are considered potentially controllable (and therefore potentially makes organisations legally liable for negligence for poor WHS practice).

Now technically understanding what comprises WHS management, it is useful to understand how different organisations, and even regions of the world, approach it.

Differing perspectives on WHS and its management

As mentioned earlier, the World Health Organization defines work (occupational) health and safety as “all aspects of health and safety in the workplace and has a strong focus on primary prevention of hazards” (World Health Organization, n.d., para. 1).  So, at the organisational level, why might one organisation be very proactive about WHS, to the extent of doing worker wellbeing activities, and another may only do the minimum or try to avoid any focus on worker safety?  Some factors to consider might be:

• Size – the number of employees and/or financial capacity.
• Danger – some jobs might be physically or psychologically more dangerous than others. So some businesses – just to get the job done – may need a stronger safety focus than others.
• Legislation – different parts of the world have different laws, so WHS requirements might be different.

As such, there may be some scenarios where an employer could get the job done more cheaply without safe work practices (perhaps in developing economies without legislation and with many available workers; a similar situation to Britain during the Industrial Revolution in Chapter 2), alternatively, in a knowledge economy (where employees are valued for thoughts and ideas) an employer might want to support wellbeing as they require relaxed and thriving employees to achieve the company’s aims. Every situation, and response to WHS, will be different depending on historical and contemporary contexts.

Figure 4.3: Workers without safety equipment patching the roads in Metro Manila, Philippines.

Source: “Dangeous jobs” by Wayne S. Grazio, Flickr.com, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Likewise, employees come to work with different attitudes towards health and safety. Together employer and employee values—the attitudes and beliefs towards WHS—will either prioritise or deprioritise it in a particular business.  Values and goals are a combination of top-down, employer, values but also bottom-up, worker, behaviours.  Hopkins & Palser (1987) suggest that organisations and their workers either blame-the-victim, and believe that the worker causes the situation and/or injury,  or blame-the-system, and believe that the situation and/or injury occurred because of a series of workplace errors. Every decision from then on is based on which of these two approaches an organisational has towards WHS management and, subsequently, creates a proactive or reactive safety culture. We will address the concept of safety culture in more depth in Chapter 6.

WHS management is not applied consistently between organisations or in different regions of the world.  Organisational and worker values will prioritise or de-prioritise safety management.  This is because there are different philosophical perspectives towards WHS management.  At this point you may be asking yourself, as an HR manager, how can I possibly manage WHS in my organisation?  In the next chapter you will be introduced to conceptual models, together with practical know-how, that will help you prepare to embark on safety management.