Occupational Health and Safety Policy

Kickstart Coaching is committed to its corporate and legal occupational health and safety management system and providing a safe work environment at all times. By understanding and adhering to the procedures put in place, you will help ensure a safe and healthy work environment for yourself, your colleagues and your students. Health and safety is an essential responsibility for the long term success of Kickstart Coaching. Kickstart Coaching adheres to its responsibilities through implementing and maintaining policies, procedures and practices at all times. Kickstart Coaching also seeks to enhance and make improvements to its policies at all times in line with the company’s desire for achieving excellence in all areas.

Kickstart Coaching will ensure that its staff and students and members are kept informed of legislation and Kickstart Coaching procedures through provision of initial and annual training for staff in health and safety and making information of our policies available to students in the student guide. Kickstart Coaching will hold staff accountable for the Occupational Health and Safety impacts of their activities. ( please the Guidelines manual for further details )

Legislation

Kickstart Coaching and those involved in its management, have legal responsibilities for occupational health and safety under both common law and statutory law. Under common law, Kickstart Coaching and its employees may be sued for damages for any personal injury or property damage caused by the activities of Kickstart Coaching. Under statutory law, each State and Territory has established its own Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S) legislation which imposes obligations on Employers to provide a healthy and safe working environment.

The various Acts aim to achieve the following outcomes:

  • To maintain the health, safety and welfare of all Employees, students and members
  • Protection of people, other than Employees, at the workplace eg. Visitors, clients or subcontractors
  • Promotion of work environment which is adapted to the physical and psychological needs of Employees
  • Provision of a framework of regulation and codes of practice to give more specific guidance on selected hazards

General Duty of Care

All the Occupational Health and Safety Acts impose a broad and general duty of care on Employers to:

  • Provide a healthy and safe working environment
  • Take all practicable or reasonable steps to secure the health, safety and welfare of persons at work

Employers can exercise this duty of care obligation by:

  • Providing a safe workplace
  • Providing safe systems of work
  • Providing and maintain equipment in a safe condition
  • Providing adequate information, instructions, training and supervision to their Employees to allow them to do the job safely and without risk to health.

The primary group to whom the general duty of care is owed is the Employees. However, the duty of care obligation also applies to other people who may be affected by the undertaking or activities of Kickstart Coaching, such as:

  • Contractors
  • Visitors
  • Clients
  • Students

Regulations and Code of Practice

As well as the general duty of care obligation, the various Acts incorporate a framework of regulation and codes of practice. Together these provide more definitive guidance on specific matters and hazards in the workplace. Compliance with Regulations is mandatory and breaches may result in prosecution and penalties.

Codes of practice, unlike the regulations are not mandatory. They provide guidance for people who have responsibilities for managing specific hazards in the workplace. While codes of practice are not ‘legally’ mandatory, Kickstart Coaching adopt the applicable provisions of the relevant code of practice in the workplace as minimum standards.

The codes of practice:

  • Are generally agreed minimum standards for dealing with the hazard concerned
  • Are admissible as evidence in any proceeding under the Act
  • Should be adhered to unless Kickstart Coaching can clearly demonstrate that its procedures and practices provide better protection against the hazard than those provided by the code of practice
  • All staff are to be made aware which regulations and codes of practice are relevant and applicable to their work environment
  • All staff are to ensure that the provisions of applicable regulations and codes of practice are compiled with in their respective areas of work and responsibilities.

Kickstart Coaching will record details of any accidents, injuries or hazards occurring in the workplace. Controls and avoidance measures will be considered and implemented as part of the Kickstart Coaching Risk management framework. If there is a requirement for change as a result of an identified problem or risk, Kickstart Coaching will allocate responsibility, resources and a budget for that problem to be resolved. It will appoint a suitably qualified project manager to oversee the project and to report back to in on a regular basis until the identified problem and/or risk is brought to a resolution.

Responsibility

All staff and contractors have a legal responsibility to contribute to a safe work environment.

The Director:

The Managing Director is responsible and accountable for the health and safety of Employees on a day to day basis. For example, it is the Manager’s responsibility to identify potential safety hazards and control them before they cause an accident. If necessary, the Managing Director can request professional assistance from external consultants.

The Employee/ contractor:

Kickstart Coaching is committed to the safety of the employee, however, the employee must also be concerned for their own safety and the safety of others who work with them or may be affected by their actions.

Under the various Acts Employees have the following legal responsibilities:

  • Ensuring that you do not risk your own health and safety or that of others
  • Co-operating with Kickstart Coaching it its endeavours to provide a healthy and safe work environment
  • Reporting potential workplace hazards to the Manager
  • Immediately fixing and minor workplace hazards found in the workplace, such as spills on the floor or boxes left flocking the corridor and recording where this occurs

Employees are responsible for the consequences of their actions at work. Therefore employees must not take shortcuts or deliberately breach Kickstart Coaching’s procedures and guidelines. Furthermore, employees have a legal obligation to comply with Kickstart Coaching’s direction in terms of equipment, processes and procedures.

Hazard Management

A hazard is defined as any situation, process or equipment that has the potential to cause injury. The Manager is responsible for initiating the hazard management process (ie identifying hazards), however, it is important that all Employees /contractors participate in the hazard identification process. Whilst employees are encouraged to help to identify workplace hazards it is important that during this process they do not put their selves or others at risk, nor attempt to fix a hazard involving something for which they are not qualified to attend to.

Kickstart Coaching reviews its hazard management on an ongoing basis as and when incidents are reported. Hazards can be broken into five different categories:

  • Physical
  • Mechanical/electrical
  • Chemical
  • Biological
  • Psychological

There are also five common injuries or illnesses that white collar industries generally experience:

  • Manual handling
  • Occupational Overuse Syndrome
  • Slips, trips and falls
  • Commuting injuries
  • Psychological

For the safety of all staff, students and visitors, and the well being of others, staff are expected to attend annual training in order to keep up to date with local safe working practices. Kickstart Coaching is committed to eliminating hazards and implementing safe work practices.