Worker engagement and participation

Worker participation is a key part of an effective health and safety system because the people who do the work are best placed to understand and manage the risks and contribute to system improvements.

A successful health and safety system allows workers to participate in health and safety.

Under section 127 of the Education and Training Actopen_in_new, boards must ensure that the school is a physically and emotionally safe place for all students and staff.

By supporting workers in the school to be engaged and invested in health and safety, the board maximises the ability of all to achieve this objective.

Keep reading to learn more.

What are your board’s responsibilities?

Your board is responsible for ensuring appropriate policies and systems are in place to identify risks, maintain facilities, monitor, and evaluate the effectiveness of health and safety practices.

To do this effectively, your board, through the principal, will have a process for actively engaging with staff and having them actively participate in health and safety processes.

The Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (HSWA)open_in_new strongly focuses on worker engagement and participation, recognising this is essential to fostering a safety-conscious culture.

The HSWA sets out the duties of your board (as the PCBU) for involving workers in work health and safety.

What is a PCBU?

A PCBU is a “person conducting a business or undertaking,” usually a legal or corporate entity.

In the case of a kura or school, the board is the PCBU, and the board members are officers of the PCBU.

As board members (and officers of the PBCU), you have considerable influence over ensuring that everything reasonably practicable is done to keep everyone healthy and safe.

The role of the PCBU is a crucial role defined by the law.

The board must:

Engage, so far, is reasonably practicable with workers who carry out work for it and are directly affected, or likely to be directly affected, by a work health and safety matter.
Have practices that allow workers who work for the board to have reasonable opportunities to participate effectively in improving health and safety in the school on an ongoing basis.

This contributes to overall staff satisfaction, morale, and productivity while supporting the learning and achievement of all students.

Failure to provide reasonable and practicable opportunities for worker participation and to ensure worker engagement is an offence under
section 58 of the HSWAopen_in_new.

Under section 59 of the HSWAopen_in_new, the board needs to:

Provide any relevant information in a timely manner.
Provide adequate opportunities for workers to express their views and contribute to the decision-making process.
Include workers' views in the board’s decision-making process.
Advise workers of the outcomes of the engagement in a timely manner.

Your board must also ensure worker representatives are adequately trained and cover the cost of that training.

The meaning of “what is a worker” can be found in section 19 of the HSWAopen_in_new.

Do workers, others, and visitors have any obligations or duties?

Yes – workers and others in any workplace must do the following:

Take reasonable care for their own health and safety.
Take reasonable care that their acts or omissions don’t adversely affect others.
Comply with reasonable instructions that support compliance with the HSWA and regulations.

Workers must also cooperate with reasonable policies and procedures that support health and safety and have been notified to the worker.

Workers also have the right to stop work if they believe it is unhealthy or unsafe.

Why is worker participation integral to an effective health and safety system?

The development of health and safety policies, processes, and procedures demonstrates the board’s commitment to health and safety management.

Policies, processes, and procedures will be most effective when everyone in the workplace is involved in their development.

A workplace must ensure that workers have a say on any health and safety matters that could affect them or their workmates and consider their suggestions on improving health and safety at work.

Workers are empowered to manage and minimise workplace risks when they are engaged and participating, with easy access to relevant workplace health and safety information, systems, and processes.

The board’s policies, processes, and procedures assist everyone involved in making informed health and safety decisions that enhance and improve the school’s health and safety performance.

How can your board encourage and ensure effective work participation and engagement?

The HSWA does not specify what types of worker participation practices workplaces should have.

How a board engages its workers and others depends on how, when, and where the work is carried out and the size and nature of risks.

The focus should be on effective practices rather than whether any systems or processes are in place.

Board policies and processes need to embed worker engagement and participation, including providing easy access to health and safety information.

The ways for workers to contribute should be clear and well-known to everyone.

What participation looks like at your school will depend on your school’s size, the nature of the risks identified, and the views and needs of your staff and students.

One method of doing this is to have a health and safety committee with health and safety representatives elected by the school staff.

Make health and safety a regular topic at board meetings, with reporting that genuinely promotes the value of worker participation.

How does your board ensure appropriate representation through health and safety committees?

A health and safety committee brings workers (including any health and safety representatives) and management together to develop and review policies and procedures for the workplace to take to your board.

Your school (especially if it is a large secondary school) may wish to form working groups.

These could be based on location within the school grounds, the type of work carried out, or identified levels of risk (administrative, education outside the classroom, classroom-based teaching, technology or science, for example).

Each working group could have its own representative.

If the school chooses to consult with all staff simultaneously (having only one working group), you would require one representative per nineteen workers on the school’s health and safety committee.

Your board may also choose to have a board representative on that committee.

Your board may establish a health and safety committee on its own initiative, or the health and safety representatives may request the formation of a committee.

Note: A school with twenty or more workers must form a committee if requested within two months of receiving the request.

Questions your board could ask

Is an induction in place for new workers and volunteers, which includes their legislated responsibilities?
Does our board provide opportunities for workers to participate in improving health and safety, and is this documented?
Has our board made provision for annual health and safety representative training?
Is there evidence that the health and safety representative(s) receive the required health and safety training?
Is health and safety regularly on the agenda, and are we asking the right questions?
Does our board have a plan in place for engaging all workers across the school when assessing the effectiveness of our health and safety policy?
Does our board’s policy align with the school's values to promote an effective safety culture within the school, and how do we know?
Does our board have an effective two-way feedback process that provides timely information transfer between our board, the health and safety committee, and the workers?
Does our board receive enough information from the principal to ensure the work environment is emotionally and physically safe for all staff and students?

Templates, resources, and references

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