Work Health & Safety

Identify hazards, report incidents, run inspections, track corrective actions, and manage workers' compensation claims and return-to-work plans.

Overview

The WHS module covers the full safety cycle:

Hazards - what could cause harm, how likely it is, and what you've done about it

Incidents - what actually happened, investigated through to closure

Inspections - scheduled checks against a checklist

Corrective actions - the work that comes out of all three, tracked to completion

Workers' compensation - claims, benefits, medical certificates, assessments and appeals

Return to work - staged plans that bring an injured worker back safely

Hazards

Recording a Hazard

Go to Work Health & Safety > Hazards and click New Hazard

Describe the hazard and where it is

Choose its category: chemical, biological, physical, psychological, ergonomic or environmental

Assess the risk - likelihood (rare through almost certain) against consequence (insignificant through catastrophic). Mployr derives the risk level: low, medium, high or critical

Name a responsible person and a review date

Controlling a Hazard

Record what you've done using the hierarchy of control, strongest first:

Eliminate - remove the hazard entirely

Substitute - replace it with something safer

Engineering - isolate people from it

Administrative - change how people work

PPE - protect the individual

Then record the residual risk - the likelihood, consequence and level that remain once the controls are in place. The difference between the initial and residual assessment is the evidence that your controls did something.

Hazard Status

Identified → Assessed → Controlled → Monitoring → Closed. A hazard under monitoring comes back at its review date rather than being forgotten.

Incidents

Reporting an Incident

Go to Incidents and click New Incident

Choose the type: injury, illness, near miss, dangerous occurrence, environmental or property damage

Record what happened, when and where

Set the severity (ISL 1-4)

Add the people involved and how each was involved - injured, witness, reporter, first responder

Near misses matter as much as injuries here - they're the cheapest lesson you'll get.

Investigation

Incidents run Reported → Under investigation → Resolved → Closed. During investigation, raise corrective actions against the incident so the findings turn into work rather than a document.

Inspections

Go to Inspections and schedule one - routine, follow-up, external or pre-start

Work through the checklist, marking each item pass, fail, N/A or observation

Give the inspection an overall rating: satisfactory, needs improvement, or unsatisfactory
Failed items become corrective actions

Inspections run Scheduled → In progress → Completed, or cancelled.

Corrective Actions

Corrective actions are the connective tissue of the module - they come out of hazards, incidents and inspections, and they're where safety work actually gets done.

Each action carries a priority (low, medium, high, critical), an owner, and a due date, and moves through Open → In progress → Completed → Verified. Anything past its due date is flagged overdue.

Verification is a separate step from completion on purpose: someone other than the person who did the work confirms it actually addressed the problem.

Workers' Compensation

Where an incident becomes a claim, the workers' compensation area tracks it end to end:

Claims - the claim itself and its current status

Benefits - payments made under the claim

Medical certificates - capacity certificates and their dates

Assessments - medical and functional assessments

Appeals - where a decision is disputed

Documents - everything supporting the claim

Audit trail - who changed what, and when

Insurance policies and premiums live in the Insurance guide; this is the claim and the injured worker.

Return to Work

A return-to-work plan brings someone back in stages rather than all at once:

Create the plan against the worker and their claim

Add phases - each with its duration, hours, and the duties and restrictions that apply

Review at the end of each phase and progress, extend or adjust
Close the plan when the worker is back to their pre-injury duties

The plan is the shared document between the worker, their manager, the treating practitioner and the insurer, so keep it current rather than retrospective.

Frequently asked questions

What's the difference between an incident and a hazard?

A hazard is something that could cause harm - it's forward-looking and gets assessed and controlled. An incident is something that did happen, and gets investigated. A near miss is reported as an incident, and usually creates or updates a hazard as well.

Why does a corrective action need verifying after it's completed?

Completion says the work was done; verification says the work fixed the problem. Keeping them separate means someone checks the control actually holds before the item disappears off the list.

Do I have to re-assess risk after adding controls?

Yes - that's the residual assessment. Recording it is what shows the control worked, and it's what an inspector or auditor will look for.

How do incidents connect to workers' compensation?

An incident that results in an injury with a claim links through to the workers' compensation record, which then carries benefits, medical certificates, assessments and any appeal. The return-to-work plan hangs off the same claim.

Can safety events trigger work automatically?

Yes - WHS events are available as Automations triggers, so you can route notifications, create actions or alert managers without anyone remembering to.

Tips

Report near misses; they're the incidents that haven't cost you anything yet
Always record residual risk - an assessment without it doesn't show the control worked
Give every corrective action a real owner and a real date, not a team and "ASAP"
Schedule routine inspections rather than doing them when something feels wrong
Keep return-to-work plans current - a plan written once and never reviewed helps nobody

Work Health & Safety | Help Center

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