Health and Safety requirements for home builders

Managing Workplace Health and Safety (WHS) on-site is all about identifying hazards and reducing risks to keep everyone safe. The most important thing you can do is make sure that everyone on-site takes WHS seriously, from the supervisor to the apprentice. 

If you don’t know where to start with H&S, check out the list of top-priority health and safety actions we’ve listed below. If you’re looking for a detailed list of all the WHS tasks you should be checking off as a home builder, download the Residential Construction Health and Safety Checklist

Key WHS construction requirements in a nutshell:

What does good health and safety look like?

• You provide a safe working environment: Your site is safe and free from hazards that could cause harm to your employees or others.
• You have WHS management system in place: A WHS management system documents how you will manage WHS risks in your workplace. The system includes processes for identifying, assessing, and controlling risks. You have a Site Specific Safety Plan (SSSP) in place for every build. The plan is customised to the unique requirements of the project. 
• Your contractors are up to scratch and operate safely on site: You’ve checked contractors have good WHS practices in place and the appropriate insurance to be operating. 
• You regularly communicate with workers on-site: Everyone on-site has the appropriate training, instruction and information they need to carry out their work safely. When it comes to health and safety, you can’t communicate too much! 
• You collect a Safe Working Method Statement (SWMS) before High Risk Construction Work begins on-site: Importantly, the SWMS is specific to the task and the site at hand. 
• You monitor health and safety performance: You regularly monitor your WHS activity and identify any areas where improvements can be made.
• All incidents are reported: Incidents and near misses on site are reported, documented and investigated. Investigating near misses and incidents will help you to understand the cause so you can put corrective actions in place to prevent similar incidents from happening again in the future. If an incident is notifiable, it is reported to the regulator.  
• Nailed all these things? Download the full Health and Safety checklist

Take the hard yakka out of health and safety, with simple digital tools and expert advice when you need it.  The HazardCo system will give you confidence that you’re doing all the right things on-site, in the right way. It even has a SSSP Generator so you can create a site-specific safety plan in minutes – take it for a test drive.

Get a free 7-day trial of the HazardCo health and safety system.