Safety reporting
This guide will help business leaders and senior executives, board members, work health and safety managers and, persons to report on WHS in a more meaningful way. The guide is based on the SafeWork Australia 2017 report, “Measuring and reporting on Work Health & Safety” authored by Dr Sharron O’Neill and Ms Karen Wolfe.
Poor WHS decisions and outcomes can have a detrimental impact on the lives of individuals and their families, on the financial, interpersonal and reputational health of a business and, potentially, on the wider community. Conversely, effective WHS management contributes to lower preventable costs and business risk, higher productivity and profitability and greater organisational success.
To ensure safe and healthy work, business leaders (board members, senior executives etc) and work health and safety managers must seek out appropriate information to ensure they adhere to their WHS obligations and due diligence requirements.
Work Health and Safety reports are one such way that business leaders can identify useful measures to help improve their WHS performance.
The information contained in a WHS report needs to be relevant, robust and timely to inform the decisions that influence ongoing business performance on work health and safety, and related matters. It is important to understand the WHS data that supports that process; where it comes from, what it looks like and, importantly, how meaningful WHS KPIs should be calculated and interpreted. This knowledge enables business leaders to draw valid conclusions about WHS and to act appropriately on that information.
Associate Professor Dr Sharron O’Neill (University of NSW), in partnership with SafeWork NSW, has developed a practical guide to assist business leaders obtain the information they need to exercise WHS due diligence and, outline the evidence that help answer the right question about WHS knowledge, controls, performance and assurance.
This guide is based on the SafeWork Australia 2017 report, “Measuring and reporting on Work Health & Safety” authored by Dr Sharron O’Neill and Ms Karen Wolfe.
Who should read this guide?
Business leaders and senior executives, board members, work health and safety managers and, persons responsible for obtaining information and developing WHS reports.
Access the full report developed for Safe Work Australia.
For a shorter, more user friendly guide to assist you, download the Measuring and Reporting WHS information (PDF 2.1 MB).