WORKPLACE SAFETY QUESTIONS ANSWERED

Your workplace safety questions answered with Safe Ag Systems

By Angela Harders

NGIV are partnering with Safe Ag Systems to raise awareness about workplace safety risks affecting Victorian Nurseries. Their Workplace Health and Safety Manager, Angela Harders, will be giving her expert insights to all your safety related questions.

To kick things off here are two of their most frequently asked workplace safety queries.

What is best practice for Group Inductions?

When you have a number of people starting all at the same time, such as pickers, doing a group induction makes a lot of sense. Group inductions mean you can share the same information to many people at the same time, so are time and cost effective for a business, especially if they are doing similar work. You need to ensure all attendees understand the information, whatever their background. This may mean providing the induction in other languages, or perhaps using images and pictures, or showing a video of a process. You could even ask a few questions of attendees to confirm they have understood the information presented. It’s important to get the names of all attendees and get them to sign against their name as evidence they have attended.

How can you encourage workers to take safety seriously?

Workers will take your lead on safety. It’s not just what you say, it’s what you do that speaks volumes. Set the standard you expect when workers first start with you, and continue to reinforce this as part of daily operations. Explain how they stay safe day to day, show them, teach them and hold them accountable for what you need them to do. Explain risks associated with your industry, machinery and tasks so people understand what can hurt them and how to stay safe. If you see something that isn’t safe, act on it. Pick up the hose across a walkway. Grab a trolley to move rootstock instead of carrying it. And encourage workers to report hazards and incidents – if you don’t know about it, you can’t address it. Safety is an all day, every day thing and if you take it seriously, your workers will too.

Introducing Angela Harders, Safe Ag Systems Workplace Health and Safety Manager

With more than 15 years’ experience working in the Safety Industry and Injury Management, Angela joined the Safe Ag Systems team In October 2019 to champion compliance relating to Health and Safety requirements in Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, and the United States.

Having grown up on the family grain and sheep farm in country Victoria, Angela knows personally the risks and hazards that are faced by the agricultural industry empowering her strong belief that prevention is better than a cure when it comes to safety. Witnessing injured family and friends over the years gave her the passion to help make agriculture a safer industry without making safety a burden.

Apart from supporting compliance and driving system developments, Angela is also involved with producing training content for Regional Skills Training Pty Ltd. She has previously covered important topics such as Biosecurity, Livestock Management and Freshcare.

As part of her approach to safety, Angela is convinced preventing injury is far more cost effective than money spent on increase workers’ compensation premiums and return to work costs.

Recently partnering with NGIV, Angela is committed to helping our members improve their safety practices. Send your questions to Angela e: angela@safeagsystems.com or t: 08 8490 0939. You are welcome to remain anonymous.