Two duties that come down to one thing: keep the safety conversation going
The HSWA places two connected duties on every PCBU: engage with workers on health and safety matters that affect them, and have participation practices that give workers real, ongoing opportunities to improve health and safety. It applies to every business regardless of size or risk. The law is deliberately flexible — what matters is whether your engagement and participation actually work, not which system you use.
Engagement and participation are connected. Engagement is about involving workers in health and safety decisions that affect them — so far as is reasonably practicable. Participation is about having ongoing practices that give workers reasonable opportunities to take part in improving health and safety. In essence, both are about starting and keeping up a conversation about health and safety at work.
When you engage, you share relevant health and safety information, give workers a reasonable opportunity to express their views and raise issues, take those views into account when you make decisions, and tell workers the outcome. You must engage on key matters — for example when identifying hazards and assessing risks, deciding how to control them, proposing changes that affect health and safety, and deciding procedures for engagement, participation, training and monitoring.
Participation practices are the everyday ways workers take part — toolbox talks, team meetings, walkarounds, suggestion and reporting systems — and the formal mechanisms of health and safety representatives (HSRs) and health and safety committees (HSCs). On request from a worker, you must initiate the election of an HSR, and you must set up a committee if an HSR or five or more workers ask for one. See also toolbox talks.
The law enables flexibility and innovation. If you already have engagement and participation that are effective and consistent with the HSWA, that is what counts — the focus is on effectiveness, not on having a particular system. When workers are genuinely involved, hazards get spotted and fixed sooner, and the business is safer and more productive. Workers also have the right to raise concerns and to cease unsafe work without disadvantage.
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Two connected HSWA duties on every PCBU: to engage with workers on health and safety matters that affect them so far as is reasonably practicable, and to have practices that give workers reasonable opportunities to participate in improving health and safety.
Yes. All PCBUs must have worker engagement and participation practices, regardless of their size, level of risk or type of work.
Sharing relevant information, giving workers a reasonable opportunity to express their views and raise issues, taking those views into account in decisions, and telling workers the outcome.
You must initiate the election of an HSR if a worker requests it, and set up a health and safety committee if an HSR or five or more workers request one. Otherwise the practices you use are flexible.
No. The law focuses on effectiveness rather than a particular system. If your engagement and participation are effective and consistent with the HSWA, that is what matters.
