Boards and Executive Management are well aware that they have Due Diligence obligations as Officers for their organisations. When it comes to WHS, though, not all Officers are clearly aware of what this means.

‘Due Diligence’ is required under Sec 27 (5) of the WHS Act, and in short it requires Company ‘Officers’ to:

  1. Be aware and keep up-to-date of WHS legislation & industry issues,
  2. Understand the nature of your business and the hazards and risks associated with its operations
  3. Ensure appropriate resources and processes are available to eliminate or minimise WHS
  4. Receive and consider information on incidents, hazards and risks and respond in a timely manner
  5. Ensure processes are implemented for complying with the companies WHS duties
  6. Personally verify the use of resources to fulfll (3), (4) and (5) above.

Overall, the ‘Officer’ has a positive duty to exercise due diligence to ensure that the Company complies with that duty or obligation.

Organisations have moved to address this requirement by ensuring that their Boards and Executives receive training in relation to WHS & their Safety Management System (SMS), beefing up reporting to ensure that information required to support the due diligence process is regularly provided. Further, there has been a growth in the number of executives venturing out of their office and down to the workplace or worksite/s with the aim of personally verifying WHS requirements.

While it is beneficial to have the senior executives on the shopfloor or at the worksite, a simple guided tour is not enough! (and siting back watching the workers doesn’t cut it either!).

The final requirement from Sec 27 (5) requires verification, it requires thinking about all of the preceding elements of the Due Diligence requirements, connecting the dots, using knowledge of WHS legislation, consideration of the nature of the business’s operations and associated WHS risks, as well as ensuring safe working processes are in place and working effectively.

So what does this look like in practice? There is a need to take some time to talk to the workers, understand the operational processes and ask them about their WHS challenges.

Ask about what happens when things don’t work as they should – what are the work-arounds?

Ask about what they perceive their WHS risks to be & how these are managed.

Talk about the SMS, and ask do they know what they have to do & does it work for them?

Consideration should be given to visiting the workforce at times when it value-adds to enable a more accurate verification process, such as:

  • At the start of the day to see if WHS risks are appropriately considered during the planning and set-up phase,
  • Have a cuppa and a chat with them in the crew room,
  • During maintenance shutdown periods to see if safety is considered during abnormal circumstances, and
  • During weekends, after hours and the graveyard shift.

There may be a need to remind the Executives that they need to be personally satisfied that all of the requirements of due diligence criteria are fulfilled. By doing these things, Executives will be able to demonstrate they are undertaking Due Diligence activities, and they are not simply “tourists” when it comes to ensuring the work, health and safety of their organisation.

Please contact QRMC for more information.