Raising the bar on safety

Increasing the safety of workers in the hospitality industry is the focus of a new SafeWork SA campaign.

The pubs, clubs, bars and taverns campaign will target organisations with a history of high workers’ compensation claims and businesses with a high a number of new/young workers and workers with non-English speaking backgrounds.

The campaign will include worksite inspections and audits to identify non-compliance and assist in educating the businesses on their Work Health and Safety (WHS) responsibilities.

SafeWork SA has published a self-assessment tool on its campaign page to help pubs, clubs, bars and taverns improve safety and prepare for a potential audit.

The industry traditionally has high injury rates and specific risks. Between 1 January 2016 and 31 July 2024, ReturnToWork SA accepted 1,616 injury claims.

The audits will focus on common injury mechanisms across the pubs, clubs, taverns and bars industry, including:

Hitting Objects with a Part of the Body: Ensuring proper storage of materials, appropriate housekeeping and lighting throughout the workplace, and adequate warning information.
Body Stressing: Consulting with workers to identify and mitigate body stressing tasks, verification of effective training, and assessment of risk for tasks performed.
Slips, Trips, and Falls: Improving housekeeping and ground surfaces, adequate space to move about the workplace.
Being Hit by Moving Objects: Ensuring appropriate machine guarding is in place, signage on swing doors, etc.
Heat, Electricity and Other Environmental Factors: Current electrical testing and Residual Current Device (RCD) testing, routine services of air conditioning system and kitchen extraction systems, appropriate ventilation.
Mental Stress: Process for managing and responding to violence and aggression (patrons), suitable grievance resolution processes, adequate training.
Chemicals and Other Substances: Verifying site chemical registers, access to Safety Data Sheets (SDS), correct storage of chemicals (including restraint of pressurised cylinders), appropriate worker training.
Sound and Pressure: Ensuring appropriate noise monitoring (specifically in service rooms, kitchens and gaming areas), adequate job rotation.
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE): Training of workers and enforcing PPE usage.
Regulator Notification Procedures: Verify the notifiable incident reporting procedures and ensure reference to scene preservation.