Consultation at work

Consultation gives people the opportunity to participate and share information about work health and safety.

Consulting and cooperating are an essential part of managing work health and safety risks in your workplace. It’s also a legal requirement under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011.

An employer or a person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU) must consult with workers and other duty holders when they are likely to be or are directly affected by a situation involving their health and safety.

Consultation provides an opportunity to:

  • communicate with each other to identify both physical and psychosocial hazards and risks
  • talk about health and safety concerns
  • work together to find solutions.

By drawing on the knowledge and experience of workers, duty holders can make more informed decisions about how the work should be carried out safely.

Basic requirements

Consultation at Work - the basics is also available in:

Consult with workers
Consult with others
How to consult

There are requirements to consult with workers. Consultation must take place on all work health and safety matters including:

  • undertaking risk management activities
  • proposing changes that may affect the health and safety of workers
  • making decisions about any work health and safety procedures
  • the adequacy of facilities for the welfare of workers.

Workers must be given a reasonable opportunity to express their views, raise work health and safety issues and contribute to health and safety decisions.

This may involve:

  • providing a suitable time during work hours for consultation with workers
  • allowing opinions about health and safety to be regularly discussed and considered during workplace meetings, and
  • providing workers with different ways to provide feedback, for example using email, setting up an intranet health and safety page or a suggestion box.

There are requirements to consult with other employers or businesses when you share concurrent WHS duties with another.

You must consult, cooperate and coordinate with each other and any workers of the business (or other PCBU) whose health and safety is likely to be effected.

How you consult is called a consultation arrangement. Arrangements must be agreed, planned and developed in consultation with workers. They can be flexible ranging from establishing a health and safety committee, having a health and safety representative (HSR), or through other agreed arrangements.

Workers and duty holders should agree on ways to support ongoing, effective consultation, establishing consultation arrangements that best suit the needs of the workplace.

There is no set way that consultation must occur. Workplaces may need to use a mix of consultation arrangements to effectively consult with different types of workers and in different situations.

Consultation arrangements should take into account:

  • the size of the business and how it is structured
  • the way work is arranged and where workers are located
  • what suits your workers, and
  • the complexity, frequency and urgency of issues that require consultation.

Health and safety representatives can be elected to represent various work groups and investigate health and safety issues.

Health and safety committees facilitate cooperation between an employer or a person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU) and workers on health and safety matters and develop work health and safety standards, rules and procedures.

Once established, consultation must be in accordance with the procedures agreed to between an employer/PCBU and workers.

Other consultation arrangements

Other agreed arrangements are flexible alternatives for establishing agreed consultation arrangements that meet your business needs and improve decision making, especially where there is no health and safety representative (HSR) or health and safety committee (HSC).

In our case the traditional safety committee we tried didn't work.

Paul Lyndon

National Safety Manager, Diona Civil Constructions

And some workplaces may need a mix of health and safety representatives, committees and other agreed consultation arrangements tailored to suit the workers and the work environment.

How to set up other consultation arrangements

Some workplaces may need a mix of HSRs, HSCs and / or other consultation arrangements tailored to suit the workers and the work environment.

It may be more effective and meaningful to have an alternative arrangement for consultation if workers travel frequently or the business is small.

Other arrangements for consultation on health and safety matters could be through:

  • regular scheduled meetings
  • team meetings (where work health and safety is always an agenda item)
  • one-off meetings
  • tool box talks
  • face to face discussions
  • briefing sessions.

If a procedure for consultation has been agreed with workers, the consultation must be in accordance with those procedures.

Checklist for setting up other arrangements

The person conducting a business or undertaking must:

  • consult with the workers on how consultation will occur and explain what consultation requires
  • ensure the nature of consultation is consistent with requirements under section 48 of the WHS Act including ensuring information is shared and workers are given a reasonable opportunity to contribute
  • ensure consultation occurs when required under section 49 of the WHS Act
  • If a procedure for consultation has been agreed with workers, the consultation must be in accordance with those procedures
  • regularly monitor and review the consultation procedures to ensure they are the most effective form of consultation.

The Code of practice: Work health and safety consultation, cooperation and coordination provides practical guidance on how to effectively consult with workers about work health and safety and achieve the standards required under the work health and safety (WHS) laws.

Request assistance from a SafeWork NSW Inspector

In certain circumstances a request may be made to SafeWork NSW as the Regulator to appoint an Inspector to attend their workplace to make a decision on an issue or help in resolving an issue.
An Inspector may be requested to:

  • assist in resolving an ‘issue’ regarding the cessation of work.
  • make a decision following a failure of negotiations for the determination of work groups.
  • review a Provisional Improvement Notice (PIN) and inquire into the circumstances that are the subject of the PIN.
  • attend the workplace to assist in resolving WHS issues.

For more information refer to SafeWork inspectors.

Consultation toolkit

Back to top