LO1. Identify OSH Compliance Requirements

Information Sheet 1.1: OSH Preventive and Control Requirements

OHS procedures and practices and regulations

1. Hazard and Risk Control

A hazard is any source of potential damage, harm or adverse health effects on something or someone.

Risk is the chance or probability that a person will be harmed or experience an adverse health effect if exposed to a hazard. It may also apply to situations with property or equipment loss, or harmful effects on the environment.

2. Environments for Safety Regulations

A common factor in whether regulation is used is the seriousness of the outcome being addressed in terms of human health. For this reason regulation is more common in transportation and the workplace, where the potential for fatal injury is perceived to be relatively great and less common in the home and in sports environments, where the potential for fatal injury is perceived to be less. Regulations are often introduced in situations where the actions of one person can injure other persons who do not have the ability or opportunity to decide whether to accept the risks associated with those actions. The most common examples relate to regulations protecting the safety of children and of workers.

Using the “Think Safe” steps

Spot the hazard. A hazard is anything that could hurt you or someone else. Examples of workplace hazards include:
- frayed electrical cords (could result in electrical shock)
- boxes stacked precariously (they could fall on someone)
- noisy machinery (could result in damage to your hearing)

Assess the risk. Assessing the risk means working out how likely it is that a hazard will harm someone and how serious the harm could be. For example:
- ask your supervisor for instructions and training before using equipment
- ask for help moving or lifting heavy objects
- tell your supervisor if you think a work practice could be dangerous

Make the changes. It is your employer’s responsibility to fix hazards. Sometimes you may be able to fix simple hazards yourself, as long as you don’t put yourself or others at risk. For example, you can pick up things from the floor and put them away to eliminate a trip hazard.

The best way to fix a hazard is to get rid of it altogether. This is not always possible, but your employer should try to make hazards less dangerous by looking at the following options (in order from most effective to least effective):

Elimination: Sometimes hazards, equipment, substances or work practices, can be avoided entirely. (e.g. Clean high windows from the ground with an extendable pole cleaner, rather than by climbing a ladder and risking a fall.)

Substitution – Sometimes a less hazardous thing, substance or work practice can be used. (e.g. Use non-toxic glue instead of toxic glue.)

Isolation – Separate the hazard from people, by marking the hazardous area, fitting screens or putting up safety barriers. (e.g. Welding screens can be used to isolate welding operations from other workers. Barriers and/or boundary lines can be used to separate areas where forklifts operate near pedestrians in the workplace.)

Safeguards – Safeguards can be added by modifying tools or equipment, or fitting guards to machinery. These must never be removed or disabled by workers using the equipment.
Instructing workers in the safest way to do something – This means developing and enforcing safe work procedures. Students on work experience must be given information and instruction and must follow agreed procedures to ensure their safety.

Using personal protective equipment and clothing (PPE) – If risks remain after the options have been tried, it may be necessary to use equipment such as safety glasses, gloves, helmets and ear muffs. PPE can protect you from hazards associated with jobs such as handling chemicals or working in a noisy environment.

After hazards are identified, how can they be prevented and controlled?

Continually review the farmstead, shop areas and work practices to control or prevent workplace hazards. Some ways to prevent and control hazards are:

Regularly and thoroughly maintain equipment
Ensure that hazard correction procedures are in place
Ensure that everyone knows how to use and maintain personal protective equipment
Make sure that everyone understands and follows safe work procedures

Information Sheet 1.2: Hierarchy of Controls

After hazards are identified, how can they be prevented and controlled? Continually review the farmstead, shop areas and work practices to control or prevent workplace hazards.

After detection, all current and potential hazards must be prevented, corrected or controlled. Systems used to prevent and control hazards include:

Engineering Controls
Administrative Controls
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
Systems to Track Hazard Correction
Preventive Maintenance Systems
Emergency Preparation

The hierarchy of controls is a method of identifying and ranking safeguards to protect workers from hazards. They are arranged from the most to least effective and include elimination, substitution, engineering controls, administrative controls and personal protective equipment

What Are Feasible Controls?

To decide if a control is feasible, you need to know how well it can protect workers and whether it can be implemented successfully. Consider whether it is:

Right for the hazard
Appropriate, given how likely injuries/illnesses are
Consistent with employer policies, laws, and regulations
Not too burdensome to workers
Recognized as an appropriate practice in the industry
Effective, reliable, and durable
Readily available
Cost-effective, short- and long-term

How Can You Use the Hierarchy of Controls?

First you will need to identify the hazard(s) you are trying to control with workers and their representatives’ participation.

Then, think about how you can block the path between the worker and the hazard. Brainstorm ways the hazard can be eliminated, substituted, engineered out, administratively controlled, or what PPE can be used with other controls. Ask yourself:

What are the pros and cons of each method?
Are the controls feasible in our workplace? Why or why not?
Where do the feasible controls fall in the hierarchy?

Information Sheet 1.3: Hazard Prevention and Control

Identifying hazards and risks is finding out what could cause harm. Identifying and reporting hazards in the workplace is one of the most powerful ways in which workers and companies can improve workplace safety. Many workplace injuries and incidents are a result of unidentified hazards, or a lack of action on controlling the risk associated with a specific hazard.

Identifying hazards is the first step in managing WHS risk (WHS is Work Hazards and Safety). The following have the potential to cause harm:

Biological hazards – Bacteria, viruses, animals, other humans
Chemical hazards – Hazards stemming from any hazardous chemical
Ergonomic hazards – Repetitive movements, incorrect posture, incorrect set up of work environment
Physical hazards – Temperature extremes, pressure extremes, noise, vibrations
Psychosocial hazards – Violence, stress
Safety hazards – Equipment breakdowns, slip and trip hazards, electrical hazards etc.

When it comes to how to identify hazards in the workplace, one of the best tools is experience. Workers who have been on a construction site for a long time can often identify hazards quickly and accurately. But, they can also become complacent with hazards and accustom to simply working around the hazards, so it’s also great to get fresh eyes in the form of other employees and external inspectors onto a site or workplace.

Some general rules of thumb which help all workers to better identify hazards in the workplace include:

Looking at every aspect of the work including cleaning and maintenance, not just normal operations
Looking closely at the physical work environment, equipment, materials etc.
Looking at past injury and incident records to spot weaknesses or ‘hot spots’
Look at how specific work and processes are done and managed including the systems behind the processes and procedures
Consider possible and somewhat unforeseen circumstances including what might happen and what might become a hazard in severely adverse weather etc.
Consider risks to other companies, subcontractors and the public
Look at the skill levels and competency of different groups. Factor in younger and more inexperienced workers when considering whether a hazard is ‘obvious’

Information Sheet 1.4: Standard Emergency Plan and Procedures in the Workplace

Organizational contingency practices

The Contingency Plan should establish roles and responsibilities designed to recover operations. Depending on the outage or disaster that has occurred, the recovery operations ostensibly could be at the original facility, or at an alternate facility. Because there are so many different recovery scenarios, you’ll want to have the roles and responsibilities defined in general terms so that they can be applied to as many different types of situations as possible.

Depending on the size of your organization or department, some of your staff may provide support for more than one role. Typically, the roles of the recovery team are additional roles to a staff member’s regular and ordinary duties. For example, the ISSO may act as the Contingency Planning Coordinator and an IT manager may act as the Information Systems Operations Coordinator. It is also conceivable that two people could act as a team in assuming the responsibilities of a particular role. For example, the Damage Assessment Coordinator has such an extensive list of duties that it might make sense to assign two people to this role. The names of the particular staff who will be assuming each role should be documented. An example of how to document these roles is depicted in the table below:

Name	Regular Job Title	Recovery Team Role
Barbara Williams	ISSO	Contingency Planning Coordinator
Stan Armstrong Cindy Bishop	Contracting Officer IT Manager	Logistics Coordinator Information Systems Operations Coordinator
Bill Weintraub	Development Team Lead	Damage Assessment Coordinator
Amit Franghali	Security Team Lead	Security Coordinator
Godfred James	Director of Applications	Emergency Relocation Site Advisor
Terry McDuffy	Telecom Engineer	Telecommunications Coordinator

Roles, and the associated responsibilities of the recovery team, that seem to work well for many Contingency Plans are included in the sections that follow. However you should not limit your Contingency Plan to what is documented in these sections. Your plan may require additional or altogether different roles depending on your operations and your business mission.

Contingency Planning Coordinator

The Contingency Planning Coordinator has the following responsibilities:

Establishes personnel rosters and maintains staff location information
Evaluates supporting information for accuracy and correctness
Ensures that supporting information is consistent with requirements
Receives status reports from recovery staff
Prepares and keeps current recovery team status reports
Keeps the staff at remote locations advised of the situations
Advises the Logistics Coordinator on new equipment that should be ordered
Identifies and coordinates alternate processing location and requirements
Coordinates annual testing of the Contingency Plan

Damage Assessment Coordinator

The Damage Assessment Coordinator has the following responsibilities:

Assesses damage to the assets
Determines the cause of the disruption
Determines the level of the disruption
Determines if key personnel have been lost or have perished
Determines if there has been a violation of classified information
Determines assets requiring replacement
Determines if personnel are in danger
Makes recommendations on whether or not to relocate to an alternate site
Estimates the recovery time
Estimates level of backup personnel required
Contacts outside service organizations for additional support (if necessary)
Ensures the security of the primary (original) site
Alerts vendors of the situations and requests their assistance as necessary
Makes recommendation on whether to relocate to alternate site
Briefs team members on recovery duties and responsibilities
Reports status and recommendations back to the Contingency Planning Coordinator

Emergency Relocation Site Adviser and Coordinator

The Emergency Relocation Site Adviser and Coordinator has the following responsibilities:

Notifies team leaders of relocation arrangements and plans
Ensures that all backup media is transported to the alternate site
Coordinates transportation of employees to alternate site
Ensures complete restoration of resources upon return to primary site
Reports status and recommendations to back the Contingency Planning Coordinator

Information Systems Operations Coordinator

The Information Systems Operations Coordinator (ISOC) has the following responsibilities:

Assists in testing of applications prior to putting into production at alternate site
Initiates restoration of services
Provides technical support to recovery staff as need
Overseas operations between primary site and alternate site
Reports status and recommendations to back the Contingency Planning Coordinator

Logistics Coordinator

The Logistics Coordinator has the following responsibilities:

Initiates standby procurement actions
Coordinates the delivery of equipment, supplies, parts, and software
Expedites the acquisition of supplies and equipment
Maintains communications with vendors providing equipment
Documents estimated delivery times for new equipment
Retains copies of all service level agreements and provides them to team
Retains any encryption keys that are escrowed
Reports status and recommendations back to the Contingency Planning Coordinator

Security Coordinator

The Security Coordinator has the following responsibilities:

Ensures that security safeguards are restored to primary site after reconstitution
Ensures the security of the secondary (alternate) site
Ensures that only approved personnel have access to alternate facility
Maintains list of all approved personnel who have access to facilities
Reports status and recommendations to back the Contingency Planning Coordinator
Ensures that all encryption keys are properly restored and recovered
Maintains a checklist of security configuration restoration activity
Verifies that security safeguards are in place before bringing alternate site into production

Telecommunications Coordinator

The Telecommunications Coordinator has the following responsibilities:

Initiates alternate communications arrangements
Coordinates the need for new telecom equipment with the Logistics Coordinator
Expedites the acquisitions of communications facilities and services
Supervises all telecom installations and configurations
Overseas access to telecom wiring closets
Works with ISOC to restore connectivity between systems and networks
Oversees testing of alternate communications
Reports status and recommendations to back the Contingency Planning Coordinator

In some cases, an organization may have a separate team whose sole responsibility is to return the primary site back to operational status. This team usually is referred to as the Reconstitution Team. While operations is on-going at the alternate site, the Reconstitution Team works at the primary site cleaning up, repairing equipment, and preparing everything to return to normal operations so that a clean cut-over back to the original site can be made.

Contingency planning is a continuous process. It is not something that can be done once and put away, only to be retrieved when needed.