Why use an OHS consultant?

The biggest advantage of using a consultant is to acquire a specialist service, without your business having to hire a full time specialist or rely on untrained or unmotivated staff to direct safety initiatives in your business.

The emergence and growth of the OHS Consultant has been a part of the broader change in business circles whereby many functions which were traditionally undertaken in house as part of a multi-skilled role now require specialists with expert advice. This is something being experienced by small, large and government organisations alike in all Australian businesses.

We have seen this for many years in areas such as Law, Finance and Engineering. However the modern Australian business environment calls for all businesses to comply with a vast amount of legislation, contract specifications, industry guidelines and license specific requirements. Section 22 (2)(b) of the OHS Act 2004 (Victoria) requires businesses to employ or engage persons who are suitably qualified in relation to Occupational Health and Safety to provide advice to the employer concerning the health and safety of employees of the employer. Therefore, the use of a consultant allows a business to make use of this specialist knowledge, without business having to hire a full time specialist or rely on untrained or unmotivated staff to direct safety initiatives.

Like the long established industries above, Professional OHS Consultants are required to undertake high level training (Post-Graduate Qualifications are required for Professional Certification), hold years of experience as well as various insurances before we may apply for registration to the Safety Institute of Australia before practicing as consultants.

However, this registration is not mandatory but is highly recommended to ensure your consultant meets the required level of learning. At SafetyZone OHS we require all consultants to meet the Certified OHS Professional or Practitioner level, which is often one of many registrations held.

SafetyZone OHS Consultants are often referred to as ‘OHS Interpreters’ for a wide variety of legislative, contract, customer and industry specific requirements expected of companies. The role we undertake is to review the project outcomes for any job by asking the question, what is the end goal we can help you achieve?

Once the end goal is established, such as ‘Safe Workshop’, ‘VicRoads Contract’, ‘Winning Tender’ we work backwards with clients to develop an understanding of the industry requirements and then apply legislative requirements as well as best practice initiatives identified through our years of experience. Once our plan is developed, we focus on the usability of documents to ensure they are succinct and practical, as we believe safety needs to fit around completing your job and work with your team, rather than drowning people in unnecessary paperwork.

Professional communication and the ability to relate with people are the key traits we look for in any new starters at SafetyZone OHS Consulting because client service and satisfaction are key values which we attribute our success to. At the end of the day, the hallmark of an effective OHS consultant is their ability to teach and provide the necessary information and guidance in ways where our clients are comfortable and confident they understand the requirements needed to meet the end goal they seek.