Workplace Health and Safety
As our Church Worker Support Officers have been visiting congregations and parishes a common area that is raising concerns for leadership bodies is workplace health and safety.
This is a critically important issue and leadership bodies should become familiar with their responsibilities. There are many places to seek resources and governments in Australia and New Zealand have made a commitment to support those people and bodies responsible for work place health and safety with resources based on solid evidence.
SafeWork Australia is a great resource for all church entities and has loads of resources to help you oversee workplace health and safety. There are links to state based agencies and different states have developed different resources which could be useful wherever you are.
WorkSafe New Zealand also has lots of great resources and is a really easy website to navigate.
We have found this Checklist from SafeWork SA particularly helpful for many congregations. It is concise but comprehensive a. is a great place to start when beginning to focus on workplace health and safety.
Please be mindful of the slight variations in legislation in each jurisdiction and always refer to the appropriate legislation. Most general information about workplace health and safety is fairly consistent – what’s unsafe in one place is usually unsafe in another – but always be aware of differences.
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