New model Work Health & Safety (WHS) laws are due to commence in NSW, QLD, ACT & NT on 1 January 2012. Whilst a lot of financial services companies take a rather relaxed attitude to WHS, these laws are likely to have a big impact in the sector by significantly upping the ante with respect to directors’ and officers’ liability.
For those directors and officers of financial services businesses who think that workplace safety doesn’t apply to them, think again.
- Mental health has recently overtaken physical injury as the cause of the longest absences from work.
- Mental health claims account for almost 22% of claims which result in workers taking more than a week off work.
- There has been a 54 per cent increase in stress claims in the past 5 years.
Go beyond your immediate workplace and think about your authorised representatives, or investee companies, or controlled assets, or even your other board positions (in particular not-for-profits) and suddenly your personal exposure to WHS has increased exponentially.
“But it won’t happen to me!” Again, think again. As they say in the safety industry “it’s not a matter of ‘if’, it’s a matter of ‘when’”. So eventually it will happen, or so the theory goes.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah… but why should I worry about these new laws? We’ve never had a problem in the past”.
A few key things about the new laws you should be aware of:
- The new model laws impose a positive obligation on directors and officers to undertake “due diligence” to ensure that their organisations are compliant.
- This concept of “due diligence”, as defined, not only requires directors and officers to ensure that their organisations have appropriate safety systems in place but also requires them to verify that they actually work in practice.
- If you don’t comply you may be exposed to fines of up to $600,000 per breach for directors and officers, $300,000 for individual workers, and for the most serious cases up to 5 years jail time.
- Imprisonment is now a reality in many state jurisdictions (NSW & QLD in particular) as criminal proceedings arising from WHS events are being moved from the Industrial Courts to the main stream court system, where prison terms are handed down on a daily basis.
This is all pretty complicated stuff which is why CompliSpace has recently published a plain English Briefing Paper for Directors & Officers as well as a free online WHS Risk Self-Assessment Survey which you can complete in about 5-10 minutes and get an instant risk profile for your business.
How Can CompliSpace Help?
At CompliSpace we have long recognised the difficulties that organisations have in establishing and maintaining up-to-date policies and procedures in a wide range of areas that are heavily reliant on legal interpretation, including workplace safety and human resources.
For many years now, we have been providing our clients with high quality online workplace safety and human resources programs which are designed to be rapidly tailored to the specifications of individual organisations. These programs come with online training and testing programs to ensure that core policies are effectively communicated to front line staff and appropriate records are maintained.
A key feature of our service is that we maintain the relevant content up-to-date with key legal and regulatory changes thus allowing our clients to focus on their core business. We also provide assurance software through which the undertaking of key safety obligations (e.g. staff training, workplace safety inspections, reporting of injuries and incidents) are verified by line managers, to provide directors and officers with the transparency and visibility they require under the new legislation.
Our clients range from top 100 ASX listed entities, through to not-for-profits and small private companies, in a wide range of industries, including financial services, mining and exploration, education, professional services, community services and wholesale distribution.
WHS Solutions Webinar- 20 December 2011
CompliSpace will be running an interactive, 45 minute webinar to provide you with an opportunity to clarify any questions or issues that may have arisen out of our Risk Self-Assessment Survey or Directors & Officers Briefing Paper.
It will also cover:
- A practical demonstration of CompliSpace’s online WHS Program.
- Why our WHS training and testing system will save, even the smallest businesses, time, money and sleepless nights.
- How to integrate WHS with HR – and why you need to!
- The importance of being able to verify that your WHS Program is actually working in practice.
- CompliSpace’s online incident and injury reporting tools.
- Examples of key WHS management reports.
- Simple ways to improve efficiency and reduce the paper chase.
- Ways to simultaneously reduce your business risk profile and your compliance costs.
Details:
Date: Tuesday, 20 December 2011
Time: 1:30pm to 2:30pm
Reserve your webinar seat now
If you would like to know more about our services, or if you have any questions please feel free to contact us:
Sydney: T: +61 2 9299 6105
Perth: T: +61 8 9288 1826
Email: contactus@complispace.com.au
Online: www.complispace.com.au
Filed under: ALL, Financial Services Updates Tagged: | CompliSpace, WHS, WHS Risk Self-Assessment Survey, Work Health & Safety, Workplace Relations Updates
