12th December 2016 By: Megan LeNoir Globally Harmonised System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS) in Australia – What does this mean to you? What do you know about it? What do your organisations personnel know about it? Australia has adopted the third revised edition of the GHS under the Work Health and Safety Laws. Australia is currently within a 5 year transitional period that began on the 1st January 2012 and will end on the 31st of December 2016. Well, most of Australia! What do you mean most of Australia I hear you asking? Yes I know, this…

18th November 2016 By: Megan LeNoir Applying Lessons learned, what does it mean? As the question suggests it is learning from incidents to prevent the same or similar incidents from happening again. Everyday throughout Australia and the world in fact, a high number of workers die and a much greater number are seriously injured. The harms to workers, the costs to healthcare systems and the damages to communities are immense. Yet many of these injuries and deaths could have been prevented by applying the lessons learned from project to project, company to company and even industry to industry. These lessons…

1st November 2016 By: Megan LeNoir Ladder Safety, it seems a simple enough concept, however a report released by Safe Work Australia in 2013 (Work-Related Injuries and Fatalities Involving a Fall from Height, Australia, Safe Work Australia October 2013) showed that despite increased awareness of workplace safety and health risks, there was no decrease in the number of fatalities from falls from heights between 2003 to 2011. The Construction industry was the worst with 37% of these fatalities and in fact 16% occur when working on a ladder. This was the highest. From the statistics, we can see that the…

CYCLONE SEASON – ARE YOU PREPARED? By Guy LeNoir 20th October 2016 With the cyclone season fast approaching (officially November 1) the Bureau of Meteorology has issued a concern regarding potentially a higher than normal frequency of cyclones this season. You may be wondering why we are raising this issue. Well it has come to our attention through our auditing work, that it does not appear that everyone working in these cyclone prone areas take these natural hazards as seriously as they should. The bureau’s outlook on the coming season indicated that the North-western sub-region which includes the Pilbara and…

By Megan LeNoir There are always conversations regarding safety in the workplace and making sure we stay safe at work so we can go home to our family and friends. But do we put as much thought into safety at home, especially for our young people. The residential home is second only to the road as the location of most accidental deaths in Australia (Allianz) Children under five years old are at greater risk of injury. Young children are often unable to assess risks for themselves, relying heavily on the people around them to help keep them safe. When you…

By Megan and Stuart When SOS-Switched Onto Safety started in business some 20 years ago we started out just in OSH. We have broadened our knowledge and experience over these years too incorporate environment as we could see that over this time, organisations themselves were wanting to include environmental aspects in their systems for numerous reasons. We wanted to be able to assist, not just from an auditing and inspection aspect but also being involved in researching and investigating environmental problems or conditions that could endanger people’s health or wellbeing. In addition to this, as one of our speciality areas…

by Megan LeNoir 1st September 2016 Something that doesn’t always get talked about is Small Business Safety. Having been a part of the ThinkSafe Small Business program and being a small business ourselves we understand that there are many things to think about in order for a business to survive and succeed. This may include responding to a competitive market, running of the day-to-day business and trying to save costs. These multiple focuses are not surprising, considering about one-quarter of Western Australian small businesses fail within their first five years. Therefore, safety and health may not be a priority over…

Stuart Platt 19th August 2016 Have you ever wondered what the benefits of having a Quality Management System are. When we started SOS-Switched Onto Safety we developed and implemented a Quality Management System for two key reasons: As neither of the owners of SOS-Switched Onto Safety had any experience in running a business, they decided that they would use the guidance of a Quality Management System to put in place the processes that would form the basis for their Business Management. The other reason, was at the time when they were submitting tenders for jobs associated with government departments, one…

During our everyday SOS-Switched Onto Safety business activities we see good things and bad things (and everything in between) in relation to Occupational Safety and Health. We actually say in our business when we are not ‘on duty’ we have to wear our ‘blinkers’. It was interesting to read that over the past financial year, WorkSafe WA have as a part of their proactive inspection program been looking at commercial property owners and property managers. This program had been instigated by a growing awareness by inspectors that commercial owners and property managers may not understand all their obligations, I would…

Megan LeNoir 20th July 2016 Hot off the press is the topic of; Installed ‘Roof Panels at the new (yet to open) Perth Children’s Hospital have been found to contain white asbestos (chrysotile). This subject is being discussed in many forums and quite frankly is very concerning. Guy very eloquently described his viewpoint on the subject on the SOS Facebook page the other day. Guy has always been concerned not just about the worker but also the effect work has on the worker’s family. This situation is no different. Workers who worked on this product allegedly were covered in dust…