Keeping your WHS Policies compliant is an important reponsibility of every business. Woolworths has paid $231,000 in compensation after a former worker was successful in an appeal for an aggravation of a pre-existing degenerative shoulder injury. Despite the comprehensive policies & systems of work in place, the court found Woolworths to be liable as these systems were poorly implemented.
Keeping Your WHS Policies Compliant – It was claimed to the QLD Court of Appeal that Woolworths breached a duty of care by subjecting the worker to a success rating system that pressured the workers to work faster or risk being sent home from shifts if their rating was lower than other employees. The worker claims he performed more than 1,600 lifts a day and had to achieve a 100% performance rating.
The Court found that although Woolworths had comprehensive policies and systems of work – they were poorly implemented and often ignored by workers and managers. The Court heard that the system of work involved rushed and frequent lifting away from the body of weights that did not align with the recommendations for the WorkSafe Victoria manual handling guidelines.
The final decision was made that Woolworths were found to be liable for the worker’s injury claims and required to pay $231,000 in damages.
Furthermore, the worker’s pre-existing condition was sufficiently common for the risk of relevant injury to be foreseeable by the employer – and had a duty to take reasonable care to prevent risk of injury.
This serves as a reminder that even large companies with substantial policies, procedures and systems in place – are still liable for risk of injury should it not be properly implemented in consultation with workers and managers.
A few questions to ask of your business:
- Have you consulted and implemented your procedures and systems of work with your workers?
- When was the last time this was reviewed?
- Do you currently engage pre-employment screening for your workers to ensure they are capable of performing their tasks?
ABILITY GROUP can help you with your RTW, rehabilitation and WHS concerns and requirements. Contact us to discuss how.
Source: Smart Company
Title: Woolworths Ordered to Pay Injured Worker $230,000.
Read Time: 1 Minutes
Source: Supreme Court of Queensland
Title: Berhane v Woolworths Limited
Read Time: 10 minutes