The Australian Work Health and Safety Strategy 2023-2033 sets an ambitious vision for WHS outcomes in Australia. Let’s explore Safe Work Australia’s 10-year strategy in detail.
A) Purpose
The Australian Work Health and Safety Strategy 2023–2033 (the Strategy) serves as a blueprint for enhancing workplace safety and well-being across the nation. Its core aim is to ensure safe and healthy working conditions for all Australians, and it provides a roadmap for achieving significant improvements in workplace health and safety (WHS) over the next decade.
To accomplish this mission, the Strategy defines a central objective, accompanied by national targets. It also outlines the essential drivers, initiatives, and system-wide transformations necessary to attain this objective during the upcoming ten years.
This Strategy guides Safe Work Australia and its stakeholders, including government representatives, employers, and employees. It’s also a resource for researchers, experts, and WHS practitioners who play a crucial role in achieving safer workplaces.
Safe Work Australia appreciates the contributions of individuals and organizations that shaped this Strategy, recognizing their vital role in shaping the future of WHS in Australia.
B) Persistent Challenges – Australian Work Health and Safety Strategy 2023-2033
The Strategy has been influenced by the prevailing WHS landscape in Australia. It recognizes that the nation will confront a combination of enduring and emerging challenges over the coming decade. These challenges are interconnected and demand comprehensive and forward-thinking strategies for effective resolution.
1) Managing Psychosocial Risks
Psychosocial hazards, including excessive job demands, inadequate support, and detrimental behaviours, pose threats of physical and psychological harm. Work-related psychological injuries result in longer recovery periods, higher costs, and extended work absences. Effectively managing these risks not only safeguards employees but also reduces disruptions linked to turnover and absenteeism. It can enhance organizational performance and productivity. Progress requires PCBUs to fulfil their responsibilities, with informed workers and communities expecting proactive measures to prevent work-related psychological injuries.
2) Health and Safety Vulnerability
PCBUs must consider workers’ needs in safe work system design, promoting awareness, WHS hazard training, and knowledge of rights and responsibilities. Empowering workers to participate and consult in injury and illness prevention is vital for identifying and controlling WHS risks.
Certain conditions, arrangements, and individual attributes increase workers’ WHS risks, making them more susceptible to work-related issues compared to peers in similar tasks.
Factors affecting workers’ WHS vulnerability include age, isolation at work, cultural and linguistic diversity, and involvement in complex contractual arrangements such as labour hire.
3) Structural Factors
These structural elements contributing to heightened vulnerability among these workers encompass:
1. Limited WHS Skill Development:
Workers with limited exposure to Australian workplaces or those engaged in complex employment arrangements may encounter challenges in accessing, comprehending, and implementing health and safety knowledge.
2. Inadequate Support:
Some workers might hesitate to raise WHS concerns due to power imbalances or concerns about discrimination and the associated stigma tied to reporting such issues.
3. Communication Ineffectiveness:
Employers using one-size-fits-all communication approaches or failing to provide appropriate supervisory support can expose workers to unacceptable workplace hazards. This is especially significant because CALD and migrant workers are disproportionately represented in high-risk industries and occupations, such as agriculture, healthcare, and social assistance sectors.
4) Small Businesses need Additional Support
In 2018–19, small businesses made up 97% of all Australian businesses, employing 4.7 million workers. Alarmingly, 43% of employees in high-risk industries worked in small businesses.
However, small business owners, due to limited resources, may struggle to grasp WHS requirements and ensure worker safety. Effective WHS management doesn’t need to be complex or costly; it can improve overall operational efficiency and productivity.
Providing concise, accessible information and tailored engagement strategies for PCBUs in small businesses will enhance their WHS capabilities. Identifying influential figures within these businesses and offering customized education and guidance highlighting the benefits of WHS investments will help fulfil their duty to ensure a safe work environment.
C) Emerging Challenges – Australian Work Health and Safety Strategy 2023-2033
The Strategy is formulated in response to the prevailing WHS landscape in Australia. It addresses a set of emerging challenges that the country is expected to confront over the next decade. These challenges are interconnected in nature and demand nuanced and comprehensive approaches for effective resolution.
1) Rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Automation and Associated Technologies
The adoption of new technological capabilities offers numerous advantages, notably in terms of enhancing workplace safety. Nonetheless, it’s imperative that these technologies are thoughtfully designed and closely monitored to prevent the introduction of new or heightened WHS risks for workers.
For instance, although automation can eliminate certain hazardous manual tasks, thereby reducing workers’ exposure to physical risks, those supervising the technology may encounter heightened psychosocial hazards due to increased or more intricate interpersonal interactions associated with their roles.
2) New Types of Work
The landscape of employment is evolving, impacting the dynamic between workers and PCBUs (Persons Conducting a Business or Undertaking). Many individuals now engage in multiple jobs, and there’s a rise in gig and platform-based work. Additionally, situations where multiple PCBUs are concurrently involved in the same workplace or undertaking, sharing WHS obligations, are becoming more common under WHS laws.
While traditional employment roles and responsibilities are generally well-defined, there’s a need for greater clarity regarding WHS roles and obligations in contexts such as platform-based, online, or disintermediated work arrangements.
3) Workforce Demographic Shifts
As Australia evolves demographically and economically, new WHS challenges are expected. An aging workforce is a notable aspect, where older employees often face longer recovery periods after injuries, leading to extended work absenteeism. Additionally, labour shortages in sectors like agriculture and healthcare may bring in more workers from diverse backgrounds.
To address these changes, PCBUs must take a proactive approach. This involves identifying and overcoming barriers to health and safety and creating inclusive workplaces that accommodate the diverse needs of all workers.
4) Hybrid Work
The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a rapid transition to remote work and flexible arrangements across various job roles. These hybrid work models, including remote work, can introduce fresh WHS considerations for PCBUs to address. For instance, increased flexibility regarding work hours may extend the duration of working periods.
This shift can also affect risk management procedures and effective communication, necessitating innovative approaches for PCBUs, worker representatives, and Health and Safety Representatives (HSRs) to interact with employees and pinpoint health and safety risks.
5) Climate-related Risks
A warming planet poses WHS challenges, with rising temperatures, floods, and extreme weather events disrupting business operations. Emerging technologies and industries focused on decarbonisation, and the circular economy create new job roles, bringing WHS concerns, such as exposure to hazardous materials without adequate controls.
Climate change, urbanisation, and human-animal proximity contribute to novel infectious diseases and increased disease transmission. PCBUs must view infectious diseases as persistent workplace hazards and enforce suitable control measures to safeguard workers and other stakeholders.
6) More Complex Supply Chains
The COVID-19 pandemic strained global supply chains, intensifying trends like heightened consumer demand and international business. Expanded supply chains necessitate a systematic approach to WHS risks, with clear duties and responsibilities.
High-hazard industries face significant impacts from low-frequency, high-consequence events, such as in the emerging hydrogen sector. PCBUs must collaborate proactively within supply chains to safeguard all workers effectively.
D) The Strategy
Aim:
Decreased Worker Fatalities, Injuries, and Illnesses
In spite of substantial progress, the Strategy aims to further reduce worker injuries and illnesses. Fatal and serious injuries have decreased over the past decade, but challenges remain. Approximately 200 workers still suffer fatal injuries yearly, and 2021 saw 130,000 serious workers’ compensation claims, with a 40-day average absence. Focusing efforts on high-risk industries will have the greatest impact on reducing fatalities, injuries, and illnesses in Australia.
High-risk industries currently include:
- Agriculture
- Construction
- Transport
- Manufacturing
- Healthcare and Social Assistance
- Public administration and Safety
E) Enablers
1) Incorporating Strong WHS Practices Universally across Industries, Demographics, and Risks
PCBUs must fulfil their obligations and invest in enhancing WHS. Encouraging PCBUs to assume more responsibility for health and safety is vital in addressing the challenges posed by changing work structures, global supply chains, and technology advancements. Regulators should adopt a focused strategy for ensuring compliance and delivering information in user-friendly formats.
2) Innovating and Enhancing WHS Risk Knowledge
Efforts should persist in enhancing the information foundation that guides regulatory and policy formulation. Special attention should be given to bridging longstanding evidence gaps, including comprehensive data on occupational diseases and injuries experienced by various worker demographics. Collaborative data collection for WHS should extend beyond the WHS system, considering broader labour market, economic, and social trends.
3) Consistent Collaboration for Effective WHS Responses
Enhanced consultation and collaboration are essential for further reducing WHS fatalities, injuries, and illnesses. Jurisdictions should increase cooperation for consistent national improvements in workplace safety. Sharing best practices and successful initiatives can lead to better outcomes for workers across Australia.
Early adopter jurisdictions should contribute their insights to inform broader policy and regulatory responses at the national level.
Unions and employer organisations play a vital role in sharing local insights, influencing regulations, and policies, and enhancing worker and PCBU capabilities through WHS promotion and education.
F) Targets
The Strategy sets targets to measure progress towards the national goal: Reduced work-related fatalities, injuries and illness.
Reduce Work-related Fatalities
1) Striving for a substantial 30 per cent reduction in worker fatalities resulting from traumatic injuries.
The Strategy establishes a goal to sustain the rate of advancement attained in the previous strategy. It will also closely monitor fatalities resulting from occupational diseases.
Reduce Work-related Severe Injury or Illness.
2) Achieve a 20% Reduction in the Frequency rate of serious claims resulting in one or more weeks off work.
Although there has been a gradual decrease in the frequency of serious claims over time, this progress has plateaued. The Strategy aims to reinvigorate endeavours aimed at diminishing serious injuries and illnesses.
3) Aim for a 15% reduction in the frequency rate of permanent Impairments.
The Strategy incorporates a fresh target centered on injuries and illnesses that have long-lasting or irreversible consequences.
4) Achieve a Reduction in Work-related Injury or Illness incidence among Workers to below 3.5%.
The Strategy introduces a new objective to decrease all occurrences of work-related injuries and illnesses, encompassing those that do not lead to significant claims for compensation.
5) Achieving Zero New Cases of Accelerated Silicosis by 2033
The resurgence of accelerated silicosis, especially in those working with engineered stone, is a pressing issue. Safe Work Australia and jurisdictional regulators are actively engaged in education, compliance, and enforcement initiatives.
We are committed to striving for zero new cases of accelerated silicosis, maintaining our ongoing efforts in this direction.
6) Achieve a 20% Reduction in the Frequency rate of Work-related Respiratory Diseases
The attention to accelerated silicosis in recent years underscores the importance of improving the overall management of occupational lung health risks.
Enhance Proactive Measures in Critical Areas
7) All Safe Work Australia members will collaborate to raise awareness among PCBUs regarding their obligation to safeguard workers from harmful substance exposure, aligning with the introduction of new workplace exposure standards.
Implement updated workplace exposure standards for 600+ chemicals to boost PCBU awareness and enhance compliance with safety regulations, ensuring worker well-being.
8) All members of Safe Work Australia are committed to enhancing the capacity of PCBUs, regulators, and workers to effectively fulfil their responsibilities in managing psychosocial hazards within the workplace.
WHS laws across Australia are evolving to encompass explicit regulations addressing psychosocial hazards. Enhancing the capacity of PCBUs is vital for enhancing comprehension and handling of psychosocial hazards in every Australian workplace.
Furthermore, improving reporting on psychosocial hazards and psychological injuries is a key focus for the next decade.
G) Actions and Role of Safe Work Australia
Safe Work Australia, with its tripartite membership, plays a pivotal role in overseeing and advancing specific actions outlined in the Strategy.
There are many ways to contribute to the success of Australia’s WHS system.
1) Information and Awareness
Addressing perceptions that WHS conflicts with productivity, raising awareness of psychosocial risks, and providing clear guidance to businesses, especially small ones, to enhance their capacity and engagement in WHS efforts is vital. Collaborative, evidence-based awareness campaigns should bridge knowledge gaps and promote a shared understanding of WHS.
Key Actions
- Create joint campaigns and resources for small businesses to enhance WHS awareness and compliance.
- Engage with small businesses to understand their communication preferences for WHS guidance and identify knowledge gaps.
- Collaborate with worker representatives and industries with diverse workforces to prioritize worker health and safety in high-risk sectors.
Role of SWA
- Executing nationwide educational and awareness initiatives.
- Creating comprehensive guidance resources and exemplar WHS codes of practice.
2) National Coordination
While substantial progress has been made in enhancing national coordination within Australia’s WHS system, there is an opportunity for further improvement. All jurisdictions have established their WHS strategies, aligning with the previous national Strategy’s goals.
However, enhanced coordination can be achieved by pooling resources, partnering on initiatives, and addressing shared challenges impacting workplaces nationwide, such as addressing harmful behaviours like sexual harassment.
Key Actions
- Collaborate across jurisdictions and industries to facilitate the replication and scaling of successful initiatives in various workplaces and regions, promoting the adoption of best practices across Australia.
- Partner with researchers to identify emerging WHS challenges and address them effectively.
- Engage with national employers to gain insights into challenges related to working across jurisdictional boundaries.
- Coordinate efforts to monitor and enhance the national WHS framework, including the development of WHS regulations, codes of practice, and related materials by Safe Work Australia.
Role of SWA
Partnering with national and international organisations to:
- Engage in the global WHS community to introduce innovative WHS concepts to Australia.
- Seek input from a wide range of WHS system stakeholders to develop customized and efficient guidance materials for PCBUs and workers.
3) Data Intelligence Gathering
Enhance the evidence base by adopting an iterative approach to collecting reliable and timely data, enabling effective responses to current and emerging WHS challenges.
Promote collaboration through data sharing among governments, industries, and stakeholders to identify trends, patterns, and new insights that inform evidence-based policies.
Key Actions
- Explore additional data sources from industries, social surveys, and various outlets to complement official workers’ compensation claim statistics.
- Foster cooperation among government bodies, social partners, and research communities to incorporate WHS measures and occupational data into national surveys and data collection endeavours wherever feasible.
Role of SWA
- Collecting, analysing, and disseminating data and research pertinent to WHS.
- Taking a leading role in exploring data methodologies that will enhance our understanding of WHS challenges in Australia.
4) Health and Safety Leadership
Governments, industries, organizations, and individuals, including PCBUs and workers, share leadership responsibility in fostering a culture of health and safety and adopting systematic approaches to WHS risk management.
Each stakeholder can make unique contributions:
- Governments at all levels should exemplify best practices and prioritize WHS as model employers.
- Collaborative regulatory partnerships can enhance system-wide capacity and competency development.
- PCBUs, as duty holders, should invest in organizational capabilities to proactively manage and prevent WHS incidents.
Key Actions
- Jurisdictions develop and refine detailed strategies and action plans to address systemic WHS challenges and specific worker groups.
- Collaborate with the vocational education and training sector to shape future health and safety training and promote WHS professions as attractive career options.
- Enhance training for WHS Officers, worker representatives, managers, and supervisors to bolster their leadership in promoting healthy and safe work practices.
- Maintain a strong focus on compliance and enforcement to ensure PCBUs fulfil their WHS duties. The legislative framework may require updates to adapt to evolving work environments and pressures on PCBUs, and robust enforcement is vital for realizing anticipated WHS improvements.
Role of SWA
- Crafting national strategies and frameworks.
- Providing updates on the advancements made within the Australian WHS Strategy 2023-2033.
5) Compliance and Enforcement
Regulatory actions provide an effective, efficient, and cost-effective means of enhancing WHS practices and should be employed as needed. Regulators should emphasise systematic WHS management to ensure duty holders comply with the regulatory intent. The National Compliance and Enforcement Policy establishes a transparent framework for engagement and ensures a uniform national approach to enforcing WHS laws.
Key Actions
- Jurisdictions work together to enhance compliance throughout supply chains, including goods and labour.
- Focus national compliance and enforcement efforts on sectors with subpar performance, including those identified as high-risk in this Strategy. Utilize insights from data on prosecutions, notifications, and breaches, and promote knowledge sharing within the WHS system.
- Enhance compliance regarding consultation, representation, and supervision to bolster worker health and safety.
- Fostering Systemic Transformation.
Role of SWA
- Creating and assessing model WHS legislation.
- Promoting uniform approaches via the National Compliance and Enforcement Policy (while acknowledging Safe Work Australia’s role as a policy entity, not a WHS regulator).
H) Driving Systematic Change
Implementing these strategies and facilitating the necessary factors will propel us towards the realization of our vision and objectives over the coming decade. Our success will be synonymous with the transformation of our WHS system into a more sophisticated, resilient, and adaptive framework, characterized by a robust WHS culture and a proactive mindset.
1) Shift from Newly harmonised to a Mature System
Importance
Progress has been made in creating a nationally cohesive WHS system since the 2012 harmonization of Australia’s WHS laws, but its full potential remains untapped. Initially, the focus was on helping industries understand legislative changes. However, now, with changing work patterns and more cross-jurisdictional operations, stakeholder collaboration is crucial for a clear and unified WHS system.
What Success will look like?
This Strategy promotes a stronger national WHS system by encouraging stakeholders to utilize shared resources, tools, and campaigns. Beyond harmonizing WHS regulation, the shift to a mature system will be evident through transparent and timely information sharing and coordination among regulatory partnerships, social partners, and other stakeholders, all working together to pursue common national goals and actions.
This will enhance PCBUs’ understanding of their responsibilities and, in turn, better support and protect Australian workers.
Achievements by 2033
- We will foster enhanced collaboration among federal, state, and territory governments, alongside other WHS stakeholders, facilitating coordinated compliance and enforcement, capacity building, education, and awareness campaigns addressing nationally significant WHS concerns.
- We will maintain responsive and efficient national model WHS laws, continually updated in a timely manner, thanks to the ongoing commitment of jurisdictions and social partners.
- We will ensure the widespread adoption of successful prevention strategies by sharing valuable insights within the WHS community and promoting best practices and effective approaches.
2) Shift from ‘How to do WHS’ to ‘Why we do WHS’
Importance
Without adequate support, PCBUs might adopt a limited, checkbox-style approach to health and safety, concentrating solely on mitigating specific hazards without grasping the broader advantages of WHS. These benefits encompass creating a workplace where employees feel valued and secure (a fundamental objective), as well as encouraging increased workplace engagement, improved performance, and reduced absenteeism.
What Success will look like?
PCBUs excelling in WHS risk management understand the importance of fostering a robust safety culture within their organizations. They are driven to genuinely collaborate and consult with workers and their representatives to establish safe and healthy workplaces. This Strategy seeks to promote and expand this mindset, placing workers at the core of PCBU efforts to safeguard their well-being and engage them in finding solutions.
Achievements by 2033
- We will showcase leading prevention examples through industry success stories, spotlighting how PCBUs have nurtured a culture of health and safety, trust, expertise, and innovation among their workforces.
- We will enlist companies with a strong WHS track record to influence their industries, including Australia’s largest corporations, demonstrating the integration of WHS in corporate reporting.
- We will engage with entrepreneurs to ensure their understanding of the value and benefits of WHS when embarking on business ventures.
- Safe Work Australia and its partners will launch educational campaigns emphasizing that good work design involves incorporating WHS considerations into workplaces and organizations right from the start.
3) Shift focus from Current work to its Ever-evolving Nature
Importance
Technological advancements, the gig economy, on-demand work, and the impact of events like COVID-19 and climate change are reshaping the Australian workforce. In line with the principle-driven WHS framework, we must proactively anticipate and adjust to these changes while addressing existing challenges.
What Success will look like?
This Strategy aims to enhance the WHS evidence base by expanding information gathering, data collection, and research efforts. This broader focus will provide clearer definitions of WHS roles and responsibilities, particularly in gig work and emerging technology sectors like AI and automation. Policy guidance will be shaped through collaboration with various stakeholders, with additional educational initiatives as required.
Furthermore, stakeholders will work on innovative data collection methods to detect early signs of WHS hazards and risks for prompt intervention.
Achievements by 2033
- Enhanced partnerships will be established between the WHS system and the research sector, encompassing various domains such as demography, law, engineering, technology, the environment, and health, with a specific focus on WHS and the future of work.
- Collaborations with stakeholders will determine effective responses to the impacts of AI, automation, climate change, and structural workforce factors, including skills shortages and shifting labour force characteristics. Educational resources and guidance will be developed to assist industries in adapting WHS to evolving work models.
- Data utilisation will be improved to identify new and emerging trends in their early stages, preventing them from evolving into national WHS concerns.
- Increased collaboration among jurisdictions, social partners, researchers, and high-risk sectors will lead to a deeper understanding of Australia’s diverse workforce and the mitigation of structural factors that render certain worker groups more susceptible to harm.
I) Reporting on the Australian Work Health and Safety Strategy 2023-2033
Safe Work Australia will provide periodic reports on Strategy progress, but a target-based approach alone is insufficient for comprehensive WHS monitoring. To better support Strategy goals, continuous improvement, and risk response, we propose a landscape monitoring method that encompasses various metrics. This approach leads the way in discerning effective practices for systemic change and addressing potential risk areas.
The optimal approach combines leading, lagging, and activity-based metrics to assess initiative outcomes and impact. It will undergo periodic reviews to ensure its relevance, adapt to new issues, and establish links between activities and outcomes.
Furthermore, it will help justify additional data collection for addressing emerging concerns and keeping the Strategy current and effective.
For more information, stay tuned to our website.
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