Overview
This unit provides you with the ability to manage health and safety in organisations in order to optimise work systems, procedures and processes by using evidence based research to inform the design and practice of OHS management systems. This will positively influence and improve workplace health and safety outcomes and maximise compliance with health and safety laws. Topics covered include the development, implementation, analysis and evaluation of organisational safety management systems as well as the integration of health and safety sub-systems.
Details
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites
The unit requires an understanding of risk concepts and OHS Law. Accordingly, pre-requisites for this unit are OCHS11025 Health and Safety Risk Management AND any one of the followingOCHS11027 OHS Fundamentals orOCHS12015 OHS Law orAINV12004 Investigation Domain Contexts.
Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework).
Offerings For Term 1 - 2024
Attendance Requirements
All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).
Recommended Student Time Commitment
Each 6-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.
Class Timetable
Assessment Overview
Assessment Grading
This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of 'pass' in order to pass the unit. If any 'pass/fail' tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully ('pass' grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the 'assessment task' section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%). Consult the University's Grades and Results Policy for more details of interim results and final grades.
All University policies are available on the CQUniversity Policy site.
You may wish to view these policies:
- Grades and Results Policy
- Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework)
- Review of Grade Procedure
- Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure
- Monitoring Academic Progress (MAP) Policy and Procedure - Domestic Students
- Monitoring Academic Progress (MAP) Policy and Procedure - International Students
- Student Refund and Credit Balance Policy and Procedure
- Student Feedback - Compliments and Complaints Policy and Procedure
- Information and Communications Technology Acceptable Use Policy and Procedure
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of University policies are available on the CQUniversity Policy site.
Feedback, Recommendations and Responses
Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.
Feedback from Informal Student Feedback from Lectures and Tutorials
No comments were recorded by students in the SUTE Teacher Evaluations.
Incidental comments provided by students in lectures and tutorials during the term were recorded and actioned where possible. In response to these, it is recommended to enhance the practical examples relating to assessment 2 and 3 tasks. These will be provided in Moodle site in the next term of delivery.
- Employ effective safety management principles across the whole spectrum of risks, including high consequence low probability situations.
- Develop and maintain an organisational health and safety management system.
- Analyse organisational performance against an established health and safety management system and safety plans.
- Evaluate the development, implementation and ongoing review of specific health and safety sub-systems that manage individual high-consequence hazards.
- Recognise and apply methods for ensuring that systems for managing health and safety are integrated effectively with all other critical systems and with relevant organisational operations, maintenance and production systems and documentation.
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |
| 1 - Written Assessment - 10% | |||||
| 2 - Practical and Written Assessment - 50% | |||||
| 3 - Written Assessment - 40% | |||||
Alignment of Graduate Attributes to Learning Outcomes
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |
| 1 - Communication | |||||
| 2 - Problem Solving | |||||
| 3 - Critical Thinking | |||||
| 4 - Information Literacy | |||||
| 5 - Team Work | |||||
| 6 - Information Technology Competence | |||||
| 7 - Cross Cultural Competence | |||||
| 8 - Ethical practice | |||||
| 9 - Social Innovation | |||||
| 10 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultures | |||||
Textbooks
There are no required textbooks.
Additional Textbook Information
There are no required textbooks. Training material and links to relevant publications will be provided in Moodle.
IT Resources
- CQUniversity Student Email
- Internet
- Unit Website (Moodle)
All submissions for this unit must use the referencing style: Harvard (author-date)
For further information, see the Assessment Tasks.
f.bogna@cqu.edu.au
Module/Topic
Systems thinking in an organisational context
Chapter
BOK. Chapter 10.1 The Organisation
BOK. Chapter 12.1 Systems
BOK. Chapter 12.2 OHS Management Systems (Terms and definitions in AS/NZS ISO 45001:2018)
Dekker, S 2019, Foundations of Safety Science: A century of understanding accidents and disasters, E-book, CRC Press, London. (Chapter 9)
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Context of the organisation (sociotechnical and socio-political environments)
Chapter
BOK. Chapter 9.1 Socio-Political Context for OHS in Australia
Zanko, M & Dawson, P 2012, ‘Occupational Health and Safety Management in Organisations: A Review’, International Journal of Management Reviews, vol. 14, pp. 328-344.
Eason, K 2014, 'Afterword: The past, present and future of sociotechnical systems theory', Applied Ergonomics, vol. 45, no. 2, pp. 213-220.
Carayon, P, Hancock, P. Leveson, N, Noy, I, Sznelwar, L & Van Hootegem, G, 2015, 'Advancing a sociotechnical systems approach to workplace safety – developing the conceptual framework', Ergonomics, vol. 58, no. 4, pp. 548-564.
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Planning: Profiling the organisation and consideration for registers and integration
Chapter
Health and Safety Executive 2013, HSG65: Managing for health and safety (Part 1 Core elements for managing health and safety, Part 2 Are you doing what you need to do?)
AS/NZS ISO 45001: Part 6.1 Actions to address risks and opportunities, Part 6.2 OH&S objectives and planning to achieve them, Part 8.1.3 Management of change
BOK. Chapter 13: Managing Process Safety (Section 1.2 & 1.3)
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
‘Plan’ and ‘Do’ within the PDCA concept
Chapter
Health and Safety Executive 2013, HSG65: Managing for health and safety, (Part 3 Delivering effective arrangements)
AS/NZS ISO 45001: Part 7 Support Actions to address risks and opportunities
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Consultation and participation
Chapter
AS/NZS ISO 45001: Part 5.4 Consultation and participation of workers, Part 7 Support
Ayers, G, Culvenor, J, Sillitoe, J & Else, D 2012, 'Meaningful and effective consultation and the construction industry of Victoria, Australia', Construction Management and Economics, vol. 31, no. 6, pp. 542-567.
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Independent study
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Planning: Elements of the OHSMS
Chapter
BOK. Chapter 12.2 OHS Management Systems
Makin, A & Winder, C 2009, ‘Managing hazards in the workplace using organisational safety management systems: a safe place, safe person, safe systems approach’, Journal of Risk Research, vol. 12, no. 3-4, pp. 329–343.
AS/NZS ISO 45001 (Annex A)
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Planning: Operational control of risk
Chapter
BOK. Chapter 12.3.1 Rules and Procedures
AS/NZS ISO 45001:2018 - Part 8 Operational Planning and Control
Health and Safety Executive 2013, HSG65: Managing for health and safety, (Part 3 Do - Organising for Health and Safety, Implementing your plan)
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
The ‘Checking’ part of PDCA
Chapter
AS/NZS ISO 45001: Part 9.1 Monitoring, measurement, analysis, and performance evaluation
Reiman, T & Pietikainen, E 2012, ‘Leading indicators of system safety – Monitoring and driving the organizational safety potential’, Safety Science, Vol 50, pp. 1993-2000.
O'Neill, S, Wolfe, K , 2017, Measuring and Reporting on Work Health and Safety, Safe Work Australia, Canberra.
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
PDCA – Linking planning, implementation and monitoring of the OHSMS
Chapter
AS/NZS ISO45001:Annex A
Li, Y & Guldenmund, F 2018, ‘Safety management systems: A broad overview of the literature’, Safety Science, vol 103, pp. 94-123.
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
PDCA – Conducting an OHS Audit
Chapter
Robson, L, Clarke, J, Cullen, K, Bielecky, A, Severin, C, Bigelow, P, Irvin, E, Cuyer, A & Mahood, Q 2007, ‘The effectiveness of occupational health and safety management system interventions: A systematic review’, Safety Science, vol. 45, pp. 329-353.AS/NZS ISO 19011:2019 Guidelines for auditing management systems
AS/NZS ISO 19011:2019 Guidelines for auditing management systems
Central Queensland University 2021, Conducting an OHS Audit Learning Guide, Central Queensland University, Rockhampton.
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Conducting an audit: Developing an audit plan
Chapter
AS/NZS ISO 19011:2019 Guidelines for auditing management systems
Central Queensland University 2021, Conducting an OHS Audit Learning Guide, Central Queensland University, Rockhampton.
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Review
Chapter
Independent study and preparation for final submission (Assessment 3 - Audit and Management Review)
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
1 Written Assessment
Word limit: 750 words (submitted as a MS Word document)
This Assessment requires you to reflect on the safety systems needs for a given organisation. You will appraise and discuss the nature and risks of an organisation in order to determine its risk profile and the resources necessary for delivering a safe outcome. This discussion is the basis for developing your safety management system in Assessment 2.
The selected organisation may be an actual organisation, but the identity may be withheld by using a fictional name.
Provide a response for each of the following issues.
1. Describe the organisation in terms of its internal context, management structure and some factors external to the organisation that would need consideration when developing its OHS Management System. This may be supported by a graphic presentation. (2%)
2. Explain how hazards and associated risks within the organisation can be identified for key current business activities (including higher risk activities, products and services). (2%)
3. Identify the key safety legislation relating to the business activities, and explain how such legislation is connected to the organisation's operations. (2%)
4. Summarise the benefits of a AS/NZS ISO 45001:2018 compliant OHS Management System. (2%)
5. Explain how an OHS Management System can be integrated with other systems used within the organisation. (2%)
Vacation Week Monday (8 Apr 2024) 10:00 am AEST
Week 7 Friday (26 Apr 2024)
• Describes the organisation and its management structure, along with internal and external factors impacting on the design of its OHS Management System.
• Explains how hazards and associated risks associated with the organisation can be identified.
• Identifies key safety legislation relating to the business activities.
• Summarises the benefits of a AS/NZS ISO45001 compliant OHSMS.
- Employ effective safety management principles across the whole spectrum of risks, including high consequence low probability situations.
- Develop and maintain an organisational health and safety management system.
- Analyse organisational performance against an established health and safety management system and safety plans.
- Evaluate the development, implementation and ongoing review of specific health and safety sub-systems that manage individual high-consequence hazards.
- Recognise and apply methods for ensuring that systems for managing health and safety are integrated effectively with all other critical systems and with relevant organisational operations, maintenance and production systems and documentation.
2 Practical and Written Assessment
Word limit: 2500 words (submitted as a MS Word document). Appendices and tables not included in word count.
This assessment provides you with an opportunity to develop an OHS Safety Management System (OHSMS) manual for a small organisation. You will build on the discussion conducted for Assessment 1 using a selected organisation of your choice and your further research.
Note: The selected organisation may be an actual organisation, but the identity may be withheld by using a fictional name.
Prepare an AS/NZS ISO 45001:2018 compliant OHS Safety Management System (OHSMS) manual that describes the way the organisation will manage safety. Note the manual is an explanation of the safety system and how it will operate, but does not provide extensive details for everything that would be included in the system. The system outlined in the manual needs to be contextualised to the needs of the organisation used in Assessment Task 1. Use learnings from the material submitted in Assessment 1 discussion to ensure it addresses the key risks and activities identified for the organisation. Include the following items.
i) A minimum of 10 elements and their sub-elements (subheadings), representing the main framework of the OHS management system (based on principles prescribed in Annex A of AS/NZS ISO 45001:2018). This must be accompanied by a clearly identified purpose and scope statement and guidance as to the structure of the manual and how it is to be used. Prescriptive information relating to each element regarding how it operates, its function and requirements must also be provided.
ii) An OHS Policy statement
iii) An appended risk register representing broad classifications of risk.
Ensure that the main body of the manual, while complete, complies with the prescribed word limit.
The suggested word length of the main body of the manual is 2500 words. Use additional relevant appendices and tables as required, as these are not included in the word count but should not add significantly to the word count).
Use the CQUniversity Harvard style guide for all referencing.
Week 9 Monday (6 May 2024) 10:00 am AEST
Week 11 Friday (24 May 2024)
- Employ effective safety management principles across the whole spectrum of risks, including high consequence low probability situations.
- Analyse organisational performance against an established health and safety management system and safety plans.
- Evaluate the development, implementation and ongoing review of specific health and safety sub-systems that manage individual high-consequence hazards.
- Recognise and apply methods for ensuring that systems for managing health and safety are integrated effectively with all other critical systems and with relevant organisational operations, maintenance and production systems and documentation.
- Employ effective safety management principles across the whole spectrum of risks, including high consequence low probability situations.
- Develop and maintain an organisational health and safety management system.
- Recognise and apply methods for ensuring that systems for managing health and safety are integrated effectively with all other critical systems and with relevant organisational operations, maintenance and production systems and documentation.
3 Written Assessment
Checking of the safety management system implementation is generally completed in two parts; monitoring of the organisation's activities and management review of the organisation's performance against safety objectives. This assessment has two parts and is based upon the organisation used for Assessments 1 and 2.
Part A: Audit Plan (30 %)
This task provides you with an opportunity to determine the audit requirements for a specific element within the OHS management system by developing an audit plan. Note that the task is to develop a comprehensive plan to conduct the audit, but you are not required to conduct (carry out) the audit.
Based upon the OHS management system outlined in the manual submitted for Assessment 2, develop an audit plan for one element. As an example, the audit plan could focus on one of the following elements (i.e. ‘OHS risk management’, ‘Training’ or ‘Communication and Consultation’ or some other element).
Your audit plan should be self-explanatory with defined audit criteria that summarises the context and method by which the audit will be conducted. The key to this assignment is to first determine the scope and then catalogue the auditable criteria (i.e., from the OHS management system, and/or AS/NZS ISO 45001:2018 and/or a compliance requirement). The plan must be related to one element of the OHS management system in sufficient detail that an auditor using the plan will be able to conduct a comprehensive audit.
When developing your audit plan, ensure a logical evidence-based practice is provided for each criterion (auditable criteria, source reference for each criterion, auditor observation and verification, auditor findings and auditor grading for each finding). Auditor grading should use the format of Comment, Observation, Minor non-conformance and Major nonconformance.
There is no particular word limit for this assessment piece because the target is to be comprehensive in identifying the audit criteria and providing a comprehensive audit plan. A number of resources and exemplars are provided in Moodle for this task. A tabulated format (use A3 if necessary) of say 3 pages is suggested.
Part B: Management Review Report (20%)
This section will provide you with the opportunity to develop your Management Review skills. Based upon the development of the OHS management system manual in Assessment 2 and principles prescribed in section ‘9.3 Management review’ contained in AS/NZS ISO 45001:2018, write a report to management for their consideration.
This review should outline the process followed, from the reflections on Safety System Requirements (Assessment 1), the creation of an OHS management system manual (Assessment 2) and the proposed audit plan (Assessment 3, Part A).
Document the issues requiring attention and your recommendations for the relevant management review topics which may include:
• Documents and data on the status of the organisation.
• Key management review issues requiring attention.
• Key factors to be considered for sub-contractor management.
• Issues in organisational learning from failure.
• Key organisational change strategies.
• Your current AS/NZS ISO 45001:2018 rollout status within the business.
• A proposed improvement strategy for the business in the following year.
While there is no set length for this assignment piece, reports less than 1500 words or greater than 3000 words are unlikely to be successful. Use a formal report style and support your report with evidence-based practice.
Further details for both parts will be provided in Moodle during the term.
Review/Exam Week Monday (3 June 2024) 10:00 am AEST
Exam Week Friday (14 June 2024)
Part A: Audit Plan (30%)
The Audit Plan must address the following items.
• Self-explanatory – comprehensive audit plan with clear instructions regarding how the audit is to be conducted (10%)
• Audit criteria extracted from reputable evidence base. (5%)
• Catalogue of auditable criteria in sufficient detail that an auditor following the plan can perform a comprehensive audit. (10%)
• Logical evidence-based practice for each criterion (auditable criteria, source reference for each criterion, space for auditor observation, auditor findings and, auditor grading for each finding). (3%)
• Grading format of Comment, Observation, Minor non-conformance and Major non-conformance. (2%)
Part B: Management Review Report (20%)
Documents the issues and your recommendations for each of the relevant management review topics, including:
• Information on OHS performance and trends. (2%)
• Documents and data on the status of the organisation. (2%)
• Current AS/NZS ISO 45001:2018 rollout status within the business. (2%)
• Status of required actions/key management system issues requiring attention. (3%)
• Communication undertaken with relevant stakeholders. (2%)
• Adequacy of resources for implementing and maintaining the system. (2%)
• A proposed improvement strategy for the business in the following year. (2%)
• Formal report suitable for submission to a board of directors/management team. (3%)
• Report is supported with evidence-based practice. (2%)
- Employ effective safety management principles across the whole spectrum of risks, including high consequence low probability situations.
- Analyse organisational performance against an established health and safety management system and safety plans.
- Evaluate the development, implementation and ongoing review of specific health and safety sub-systems that manage individual high-consequence hazards.
- Recognise and apply methods for ensuring that systems for managing health and safety are integrated effectively with all other critical systems and with relevant organisational operations, maintenance and production systems and documentation.
As a CQUniversity student you are expected to act honestly in all aspects of your academic work.
Any assessable work undertaken or submitted for review or assessment must be your own work. Assessable work is any type of work you do to meet the assessment requirements in the unit, including draft work submitted for review and feedback and final work to be assessed.
When you use the ideas, words or data of others in your assessment, you must thoroughly and clearly acknowledge the source of this information by using the correct referencing style for your unit. Using others’ work without proper acknowledgement may be considered a form of intellectual dishonesty.
Participating honestly, respectfully, responsibly, and fairly in your university study ensures the CQUniversity qualification you earn will be valued as a true indication of your individual academic achievement and will continue to receive the respect and recognition it deserves.
As a student, you are responsible for reading and following CQUniversity’s policies, including the Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure. This policy sets out CQUniversity’s expectations of you to act with integrity, examples of academic integrity breaches to avoid, the processes used to address alleged breaches of academic integrity, and potential penalties.
What is a breach of academic integrity?
A breach of academic integrity includes but is not limited to plagiarism, self-plagiarism, collusion, cheating, contract cheating, and academic misconduct. The Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure defines what these terms mean and gives examples.
Why is academic integrity important?
A breach of academic integrity may result in one or more penalties, including suspension or even expulsion from the University. It can also have negative implications for student visas and future enrolment at CQUniversity or elsewhere. Students who engage in contract cheating also risk being blackmailed by contract cheating services.
Where can I get assistance?
For academic advice and guidance, the Academic Learning Centre (ALC) can support you in becoming confident in completing assessments with integrity and of high standard.
What can you do to act with integrity?
