Leadership and culture can help control risks

The role of leadership and culture

Leadership and culture play an important role in preventing musculoskeletal disorders (MSD). It is important to spend time creating and supporting a working environment:

• that effectively manages the risk of MSD
• where employees can report concerns about hazardous manual handling and reasonably expect a response to the concerns raised.

Positive culture

Workplace culture means shared:

• practices
• behaviours
• standards
• values.

Culture creates unwritten rules that guide the behaviour of employees. This includes how employees:

• interact with each other
• interpret and respond to events.

Research shows that a positive, safety-first culture plays a key role in preventing illness and injury. Workplaces with such a culture create an environment that addresses MSD risks and other hazards to do with moving and handling people.

These workplaces do the following things to create a positive culture.

• Have leaders who are vocal, take ownership and are proactive in promoting employee safety.
• Provide the financial resources to put in place and maintain higher-order risk controls.
• Provide adequate staffing to put in place and maintain higher-order risk controls.
• Monitor the effectiveness of risk controls.
• Have policies and procedures in place to prevent and manage injuries.
• Expect, promote and monitor compliance with their occupational health and safety policies and procedures.
• Consistently recognise and reward employees for prioritising safety.
• Look for new and improved ways to eliminate or minimise risks associated with handling and moving people.
• Give employees genuine opportunities to raise issues and have a say in decision-making.
• Communicate how employees’ views have been considered.
• Are clear about everyone's roles, responsibilities and the desired outcomes.
• Have teams and groups across the organisation that can work together to solve problems.
• Provide leaders and employees with the skills, knowledge, support and resources they need to do their work safely.
• Encourage open discussion and reporting of work-related incidents.
• Have systems that:
  • make it easy for employees to report and discuss concerns related to their work
  • encourage employee participation
  • provide appropriate support.
• Take proactive steps to prevent and manage hazards and incidents.

Leadership

Leaders at all levels play a role in creating a safety-first culture. Active and visible commitment to preventing and managing hazards and risks from the top down is critical. It drives positive change and ensures continuous management of risks.

Leaders should take responsibility for the following.

• Setting and enforcing health and safety objectives and accountabilities.
• Ensuring effective safe systems of work to identify hazards and control risks.
• Monitoring risk controls to ensure they work effectively.
• Developing and promoting policy and key initiatives to support safety.
• Allocating resources to prevent and manage hazards and risks, including MSD.
• Consulting employees and any health and safety representatives (HSRs). Giving them opportunities to speak up about risks and their ideas for managing those risks.
• Modelling compliance with policies and other desired behaviour to protect employees.
• Providing all employees with what they need to do their job well, including:
  • support
  • information
  • feedback
  • resources.
• Providing adequate support to manage risks to do with:
  • low employee numbers
  • working alone
  • long hours of work
  • high workloads
  • balancing the needs of patients and clients with employee safety
  • fast-paced work and difficult events.