NET Achievement Measurement 2S (AM2S)

Correct: In a robust health and safety management system, monitoring must be balanced. Proactive (active) monitoring identifies whether the ‘Plan’ and ‘Do’ parts of the PDCA cycle are working by checking controls, training, and inspections before accidents happen. Reactive monitoring identifies where the system has failed by looking at accidents and near-misses. Using both ensures that the organization can identify trends and fix weaknesses before they lead to serious harm.

Incorrect: Prioritizing only reactive indicators is a ‘waiting for something to go wrong’ approach, which fails to prevent incidents. Using only proactive indicators ignores the valuable lessons that must be learned from actual failures and injuries. While external benchmarking and audits are useful for context, they do not replace the need for internal, site-specific monitoring of daily safety performance and control effectiveness.

Takeaway: Comprehensive safety monitoring requires a balance of proactive measures to verify controls and reactive measures to learn from system failures.

Correct: The primary legal obligation for an employer is the ‘duty of care.’ This requires them to protect the health, safety, and welfare of their staff ‘so far as is reasonably practicable.’ This involves a proactive approach to identifying hazards, assessing risks, and implementing a hierarchy of controls to minimize those risks before an injury occurs.

Incorrect: The suggestion that all risks must be eliminated is incorrect because the law recognizes the standard of ‘so far as is reasonably practicable,’ which balances risk against the cost and effort of mitigation. Providing PPE and induction training alone does not fulfill legal duties if specific hazards like manual handling have not been assessed. Finally, legal obligations are proactive; waiting for an injury to occur before conducting a risk assessment is a breach of statutory duty.

Takeaway: Employers have a proactive legal duty of care to manage workplace risks to a reasonably practicable level through systematic risk assessment and the hierarchy of control.

Correct: In the PDCA cycle, the ‘Act’ phase involves taking action to improve performance based on the results of the ‘Check’ phase. By integrating safety performance into management reviews, the organization ensures that the role of management in promoting a positive safety culture is upheld and that resources are prioritized for remediation, which is a key component of effective health and safety management.

Incorrect: Increasing signs and administrative controls is a temporary mitigation but does not address the failure of the ‘Act’ phase or the underlying performance issue. Reducing inspection frequency undermines the ‘Check’ phase and increases risk by leaving new hazards unidentified. Transferring the ‘duty of care’ to employees is legally incorrect, as the primary duty of care remains with the employer under health and safety law.

Takeaway: Performance improvement in health and safety requires closing the PDCA loop by ensuring management accountability for the ‘Act’ phase of the cycle.

Correct: Under health and safety legislation and the ‘duty of care’ principle, employees have a legal responsibility to cooperate with their employer. This includes following the training provided and using equipment (like adjustable chairs and monitors) in the way they were trained to ensure their own health and safety.

Incorrect: Hiring consultants is an organizational responsibility related to risk assessment and management, not an individual employee duty. Rewriting safety policies is a management function and does not address the immediate legal duty of the employee to follow existing safety protocols. Employees cannot legally waive their employer’s statutory duty of care or assume full legal liability for workplace injuries caused by a failure to follow safety procedures.

Takeaway: While employers must provide a safe environment, employees have a concurrent legal duty to cooperate with safety measures and use provided equipment correctly.

Correct: Ethical health surveillance requires that clinical medical information remains confidential between the employee and the occupational health professional. Management only requires the ‘fit for work’ status and any necessary workplace adjustments to fulfill their duty of care, rather than the specific medical diagnosis.

Incorrect: Sharing clinical data under an NDA still violates the principle of medical confidentiality and the requirement for informed consent. Assumed consent based on employment tenure is not a valid legal or ethical substitute for explicit consent regarding sensitive health data. Business continuity requirements do not provide a legal exemption to bypass confidentiality and share full medical records with non-medical staff.

Takeaway: Health surveillance data must be managed by sharing only the functional outcomes with management while protecting the confidentiality of clinical diagnoses and medical history.

Correct: Conducting site observations and interviews allows the auditor to see if the theoretical knowledge from training is being applied in practice. This qualitative assessment identifies gaps in communication or understanding that quantitative records (like attendance) cannot capture, aligning with the ‘Check’ stage of the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle and the duty of care to ensure safe systems of work are actually followed.

Incorrect: Verifying signatures only confirms administrative compliance rather than the quality or impact of the training. Mandatory re-training assumes the frequency is the issue rather than the content or delivery method, which may not address the underlying communication failure. Benchmarking expenditure measures financial input rather than the actual safety outcomes or behavioral changes within the workforce.

Takeaway: Assessing training effectiveness requires verifying behavioral change and comprehension through direct observation and consultation rather than relying on completion metrics.

Correct: Health surveillance is a systematic process of ongoing health checks for employees exposed to specific risks, such as noise. Audiometric testing is a clinical method used to detect early signs of noise-induced hearing loss. Maintaining these records confidentially and for the legally required duration (often 40 years for certain exposures) is essential for tracking health trends and fulfilling the employer’s duty of care.

Incorrect: Issuing ear protection is a control measure (PPE) but does not monitor the actual health of the employee. Environmental noise surveys monitor the hazard level in the workplace rather than the physiological impact on the worker. Self-reporting during performance reviews is not a substitute for clinical health surveillance and placing medical information in general personnel files violates medical confidentiality standards.

Takeaway: Health surveillance is a proactive clinical monitoring process used to detect early signs of work-related ill health and requires strict medical confidentiality.

Correct: Under health and safety legislation and the employer’s duty of care, training must be provided when an employee starts a new job (induction) and whenever they are exposed to new or increased risks. This includes changes in job roles, the introduction of new equipment, or changes in the system of work, ensuring employees are competent to perform their tasks safely.

Incorrect: Basing training only on unacceptable risk levels ignores the fundamental requirement for induction and role-change training. Legal obligations for safety training apply from the first day of employment, making a 90-day probationary delay a violation of safety standards. Waiting for an auditor or enforcement action is a reactive failure to meet the proactive legal duty to provide information and instruction.

Takeaway: Employers are legally required to provide health and safety training at induction and whenever changes in the workplace or job roles introduce new risks.

Correct: Visible leadership is a fundamental component of a positive safety culture. By conducting walkabouts and engaging in safety conversations, leaders demonstrate that safety is a core value rather than just a set of rules. This proactive engagement allows leaders to model correct behaviors, provide immediate positive reinforcement for safe acts, and understand the practical challenges employees face, which is essential for a successful behavioral safety initiative.

Incorrect: Issuing summaries of legal consequences focuses on the ‘fear’ of prosecution rather than promoting positive behavior. Delegating behavioral observations to junior staff removes the accountability and visibility required from senior leadership to drive culture. Mandatory weekly declarations are administrative ‘tick-box’ exercises that do not foster genuine behavioral change or demonstrate active leadership support.

Takeaway: Effective safety leadership requires visible commitment and direct engagement with employees to reinforce safe behaviors and build a proactive safety culture.