In March 2022, the Work Health and Safety guides were amended to reaffirm the definition of PCBU as, ‘a person conducting a business or undertaking alone or with others whether or not for profit or gain.’
“A PCBU must ensure the health and safety of their employees and additional persons iin the workplace are upheld. This extends to visitors, contractors and volunteers.”
A PCBU can be a:
- Business owner
- Company
- Sole trader (eg., a person who is self-employed)
- Each partner within a partnership
- Unincorporated association
- Government department of public authority
As a business owner, it is your duty to take every measure you can to ensure your team gets home safely. One of the most proactive approaches to ensure the safety of your team is to actively practice a safe system of work in your business. Safety doesn’t ‘just happen’ and it certainly isn’t a tick in the box process. It is a mindset and way of working- a culture that must be fostered and nurtured.
What is a safe system of work?
The key elements to a safe system of work includes:
Assessing Risk – Regular risk assessments should be carried out to identify potential hazards both to your staff and others, and assess the associated risks. This provides an opportunity to implement preventative measures and controls to reduce or eliminate these risks.
Training and Compliance – All employees should receive proper training on health and safety procedures and policies, as well as equipment handling and emergency protocols to gain awareness, clarity and confidence in safety protocols and their role as an employee. This is an ongoing process and needs to be consistent. Managers need to have assurance that the training is actually happening.
Communication – Clear and effective communication channels should be established within the organisation to ensure that all employees are informed and aware of their responsibilities. Management needs to know and practice active communication. For example, ensure that messages are being read and understood, avoiding delays and miscommunication.
Record Keeping – Maintain accurate records of all health and safety activities, including risk assessments, incident reports and training records. These records need to be accessible and available on demand.
One way business leaders are simplifying their safe system of work in their organisation is by implementing technology. The right systems can help improve already overburdened business owners manage and sustain a proactive safe system of work with ease.
Adequate systems and data can help to streamline the safety processes, data capture, data processing and retention and accessibility. Technology can drive accountability with digital time stamps and location data. Technology can help shift your business from reactive to proactive with real time data access and decision making, complimented with automatic alerts and reporting. Making sure your business is capturing vital safety information is critical. By utilising smart tools you are able to respond to incidents and alerts in a timely manner.
We want to be really connected to our mobile workforce, to keep them operating safely, TOKN provides technology that helps us achieve that.”
– John Greville, Chief Operations Officer at Mader Group – America
The TOKN Solution
FieldSafe is a cutting edge cloud safety solution that features digital tools, smart mobiles apps and cloud data widgets to proactively manage your safe system of work and ensure a complete compliance record. Used by technicians everywhere, FieldSafe is fast to deploy and puts safety in the hands of the people that matter most.
“What we are most proud of here is the focus on female safety with our new discreet safe comms and messaging options. Broader and improved incident management that’s easy to use, with physical illness and environmental options. Mobile learning management that works. All integrated on the TOKN cloud platform with the most intuitive apps.”
– Clinton Schroeder, CEO and co founder of TOKN Technology
Key features
- Intuitive risk assessment apps with SWMS – Assess your work and plan ahead. Evaluate what can harm you, what controls you need to have in place and where those controls are effective in reducing the risk. Submit risk assessments on the go, wherever you are.
- Broader and improved incident management – Complete incident reports quickly and easily with environmental and physical illness options. Effortlessly report incidents in the palm of your hand and minimise administrative burden.
- Smarter Journey Management – Let TOKN track your journey and notify your manager for help if required. Travel between sites while staying connected with your team and get home safe.
- Mobile LMS – Create training modules and inductions for your team to complete on the go. Track your team’s learning progress and see who has or hasn’t completed the training material. Learn where your team’s strengths are and the areas they may struggle with.
- Complete Compliance record – Store all your safety records in one secure place. Keep your mind at peace with complete documentation safely stored and ready to be accessed when needed.
Benefits of FieldSafe
- A simplified safe system of work
- Immediate visibility of your complete digital compliance record of every safety interaction
- Proactively manage risks and keep your team safe
- Smart messaging – get notified ahead of time
- Track all your safety interactions as they happen and avoid the risk of failing to act with proactive action management
- Engaged employees with a better user experience on all devices – no more paper!
- Saved cost with our low-cost cloud based service SaaS solution
- A more informed team who is up to date with mobile learning management
- Extendable and customisable to suit your system of work
- Integrated with your job management and business systems