Safety Responsibilities

Legal Requirements for Safety Responsibilities

Individuals within an organisation have health and safety obligations both to themselves and others for whom they are responsible. This extends from the Board or Executive level, where the obligation is to resource, fund and prioritise health and safety, to the individual employee, who must work safely and ensure no harm comes to themselves or others

Managers have a general duty to provide a safe workplace; to ensure employees are consulted, trained and competently supervised; to record, report and investigate accidents and to ensure there are processes to respond in case of emergencies

In this context, all employers must make responsibilities for health and safety clear and preferably have mechanisms to monitor and reinforce that accountability

Procedure for Safety Responsibilities

Complete a record for all people with key safety responsibilities. You may also wish to include employees or elected employee representatives. Outline their tasks and objectives

Roles must be reviewed periodically to maintain focus and currency

How to create Safety Responsibilities

There is a list of generic roles that normally have some impact on health and safety under Responsibilities in the top Administration tabs. These roles may be full time or shared, however, someone is normally expected to perform the tasks associated with them. It is recommended these roles are used as the basis for allocating tasks within the safety system. People can have more than one Responsibility and at more than one Location. See Help/SafetyBase Overview/Administrator FAQs for further information in setting up a hierarchy of Responsibilities

To document the details of key Responsibilities, go to Documents/Safety Responsibilities. SafetyBase prompts you to complete a template and asks for information about the tasks required for the role in relation to the eight main areas of activity: Accidents, Hazards, Training, Emergencies, Contractors and Visitors, Safety Meetings, Documents, Safety Plans. It also asks for the main objectives of the responsibility

These are the accountabilities and actions on which you can assess the adequate performance of each role

If you have advanced versions of SafetyBase, they prompt you to undertake reviews of the extent to which personnel are satisfying these accountabilities

Using Tasks while creating Safety Responsibilities

Tasks can be notifications, instructions, alerts or corrective actions associated with a particular file. You can add Tasks as you go during data entry, using the inline New Task button in your screen. You can also use the Toolbar at the bottom of your screen during data input, or the Tasks tab after you submit the file

As you create a file, SafetyBase may automatically set suggested Tasks, depending on some of your droplist selections. Watch for inline informational messages, which are there to alert you if a droplist might create an automatic Task

Please note that although these automatic Tasks may be created as helpful prompts, they do have generic wording, so you have the choice of creating Tasks yourself. This is advisable if you prefer the wording to be specific or personal. If appropriate, you can select the "Recurring" button, which lets you create a repeating schedule, (say, an inspection, review or check-up interval)

When any Task is set in the system, it will display in the form you created, a summary tab in the file and in the Task List of the person it is allocated to (Recurring Tasks don't show until they are due). Tasks are also e-mailed to the allocated person on the required number of days prior to the Due Date

A small number of tasks have been set as mandatory (example, reporting serious injuries to the statutory authority). These cannot be deleted

SafetyBase Tips and Tricks for creating Safety Responsibilities

• Consider associating an electronic document (example, an existing image, pdf, spreadsheet, document, video etc), using the "Attach Documents" tab, or inline toolbar at the bottom of your screen while entering data. Record the document's details by completing the appropriate data fields, then click Attach Document. The document will upload and be available for viewing. Many file types will display as a thumbnail

• You can associate a SafetyBase file using the "Link Files" inline button on the toolbar at the bottom of the screen while entering data, or afterwards, using the Tasks tab (example, Hazard, Fault Report, Accident Investigation or similar file that has direct relevance): Record the file's details by completing the appropriate data fields, then click ADD. Use the progressive filtering of the drop lists and ADD the file you want. The file will be linked. If you follow the link, the linked file will automatically have a link back to the file you came from

• Remember to link People with this file type, using the "Associate People" inline button on the toolbar at the bottom of the screen while entering data, or afterwards, using the Associate People tab. Doing this will build an automatic safety history for each person, which you can view by clicking on the person's name anywhere in the account