Work Health & Safety

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

Overview

The WHS module - Health & Safety in the sidebar - 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 workplace checks

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

Site records - site diaries, toolbox talks and SWMS, with who signed them

Workers' compensation - benefits, medical certificates, assessments and appeals for a claim

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

Subcontractors - their licences, insurance and ABN - are kept with your other contractors in People > Contractors (see Subcontractors below).

An owner or admin can switch Health & Safety on or off under Admin > Modules, along with each of its areas - inspections, hazards, corrective actions, incidents, return to work and site records - on its own.

Who can do what depends on each person's role. In the standard roles, employees can report incidents and log hazards and see the ones they reported; investigating and closing incidents, editing hazards, corrective actions, inspections, site records, workers' compensation and return to work need a role that allows them, and owners and admins can do everything.

Dashboard

Health & Safety > Dashboard shows Open Incidents, Overdue Actions, High Risk Hazards and Upcoming Inspections - click a figure to open that list - alongside your most recent incidents. Report Incident, Log Hazard and Schedule Inspection are one click away under Quick Actions.

Hazards

Recording a Hazard

Go to Health & Safety > Hazards and click Log Hazard

Give the hazard a title and description, say where it is, and set the date it was identified

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 next review date

A hazard assessed as high or critical risk notifies the people who can see it.

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. You can record the controls when you log the hazard, or later with Edit on the hazard (editing needs a role that can manage hazards).

Hazard Status

Identified → Assessed → Controlled → Monitoring → Closed. Once a hazard's next review date passes, the Hazards list flags it Review Overdue, so a hazard under monitoring comes back rather than being forgotten.

Incidents

Reporting an Incident

Go to Health & Safety > Incidents and click Report 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 - Minor through ISL 4 - Critical)

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

An incident rated ISL 3 or ISL 4, or reported as a dangerous occurrence, is marked Notifiable on the Incidents list, and the people who can see it get an urgent notification so it's reviewed for notifying your WHS regulator.

Investigation

A new incident is Reported. Record the Investigation Notes and Root Cause on the incident as you investigate - editing an incident needs a role that can manage incidents, and changing its investigation details also needs one that can investigate them. Raise corrective actions against the incident (see Corrective Actions) so the findings turn into work rather than a document - they're listed on the incident - then Close the incident when it's dealt with. Reopen puts a closed incident back under investigation.

If an incident has to be notified to your WHS regulator, notify them, then click Notify Regulator on the incident and confirm - it records the regulator as notified at the time you click. Mployr keeps the record - it doesn't lodge the notification for you.

Inspections

Go to Health & Safety > Inspections and click Schedule Inspection - give it a title, choose Routine, Follow Up, External or Pre-Start, then the location, the date and the inspector

When the inspection is done, open it and click Edit to record the findings summary, an overall rating of Satisfactory or Needs Improvement (the other ratings in the list can't be saved), your notes and the next inspection date

Set the status to Completed and save

Raise a corrective action for anything that needs fixing, with the inspection as its source

Record the results with Edit as above rather than Complete Inspection: Complete Inspection marks the inspection done but clears its findings summary, rating and next inspection date, and a completed inspection can no longer be edited.

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.

Raise one under Health & Safety > Actions with New Action, and set its Source Type - incident, hazard or inspection - and the Source record it came from. Each action carries a priority (low, medium, high, critical), an assignee, and a target date. An action starts Open, moves to Completed with Complete, and then to Verified. Anything past its target date is flagged overdue, and the people who can see it are notified.

Verification is a separate step from completion on purpose: after Complete, someone other than the person who did the work should click Verify and record Effectiveness Notes confirming it actually addressed the problem, then click Confirm Verification.

Site Records

Health & Safety > Site Records keeps your site diaries, toolbox talks and SWMS, with who signed them:

Click New record and choose the type - Site diary, Toolbox talk or SWMS

Enter the date, title, location and notes. A SWMS also takes its Version and Review due date - an inspector asks which version was in force on the day

Under Who signs this, click Add person for each attendee and enter their name and company. They don't need a Mployr login, so a subcontractor's crew can be listed by name. Tick Signed now for anyone who has signed

Click Create record

The list shows how many people have signed each record, in amber until everyone has - anyone left unticked stays on the record as outstanding. A name you list can't be ticked off later, so tick Signed now while you create the record. Someone with a login can open the record and click Sign this record to add their own sign-off - it's added as a line of its own.

Subcontractors

Subcontractors are kept in People > Contractors, the register of everyone you engage rather than employ - it replaced the Health & Safety subcontractor list (see the People guide):

Click Add Contractor and enter their details

On their record, the Contractor tab's Company Structure card holds the entity they trade as - its legal name, entity type, ABN and ACN. Click Check ABN there to check the ABN against the Australian Business Register: the card then shows whether it's Active, Cancelled or Not on the ABR, and their GST registration

On the Qualifications tab, click Add Qualification for each certificate of currency (Type: Insurance) and each licence, white card or ticket, with its expiry date

The register's Compliance column reads Current, Expiring soon (within 30 days), Expired or No insurance. Anything expired - cover or a licence - makes it Expired, and a contractor with no insurance on file reads No insurance however many licences are current. Hover the badge to see which document caused it, or filter the list by compliance to find everyone who isn't clear for site.

Once anything has expired, the contractor and the people who manage contractors are reminded the day after and then every 15 days until it's renewed or removed. To stop a contractor being engaged without ending their engagement, choose Suspend in the ... menu on their row - the reminders stop - and Reinstate when they're clear.

Workers' Compensation

Where an incident becomes a claim, lodge the claim under Insurance > Claims - choose Workers Compensation as the policy type and link the WHS incident it came from (see the Insurance guide). The workers' compensation area then tracks the rest of it:

Benefits - what's payable under the claim, such as weekly compensation and medical expenses, with the amounts and how often they're paid

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

Open it from Workers Compensation in your Quick Launch shortcuts (add it with Customise if it isn't there). Its overview shows total and open claims and the amounts claimed and paid, and View All Claims takes you to Insurance > Claims. The forms here link a record to its claim by Claim ID - the number at the end of the claim's web address under Insurance > Claims, not its claim number - and to the worker by Person ID, the number at the end of their web address under People > Employees. Files attached to workers' compensation records stay here - they don't appear in Documents.

Insurance policies and premiums live in the Insurance guide; this is the injured worker's side of the claim.

Return to Work

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

Go to Health & Safety > Return to Work and click New RTW Plan

Pick the worker and enter their claim's Claim ID (the number at the end of the claim's web address), then the start and expected end dates, the goal, the coordinator and treating practitioner, their current capacity and pre-injury duties, and click Create Plan

Activate the plan when it starts, and keep it up to date with Edit as the worker's capacity changes

Complete 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.

Settings

Under Health & Safety > Settings you choose which WHS events notify you in-app or by email - a high-risk hazard, a new incident, a notifiable incident, and a corrective action that passes its target date - then click Save Changes. These are your own notification preferences, the same ones as the Health & Safety group under Settings > Communications (see the Settings guide). WHS alerts are emailed as well as shown in Mployr unless you switch the email off.

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 is usually worth logging as a hazard too.

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?

When you lodge a workers' compensation claim under Insurance > Claims, link it to the WHS incident - the claim then shows the Linked WHS Incident. Benefits, medical certificates, assessments and any appeal are recorded against that claim, and the return-to-work plan names the same claim.

Where did the Subcontractors list go?

Into People > Contractors, which holds the same ABN, insurance and licence details. A contractor with anything expired reads Expired in the Compliance column, and one with no insurance on file reads No insurance - add or renew the document on their Qualifications tab and it clears.

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
Record who attended every toolbox talk, and chase the outstanding signatures

Check a subcontractor's Compliance in People > Contractors before their crew is booked

Keep return-to-work plans current - a plan written once and never reviewed helps nobody

In this guide