Summer Safety

This time last year, many Australians were facing extreme heat and bushfires. Summer heat brings about different risks for you and your employees.

Safe Work Australia reported that over the past 10 years, 1,774 workers’ compensation claims resulted from people working in heat.

1,679 of these claims were from working in the sun:

• 940 of the claims were cancer related
• 441 of the claims were from heat stress or heat stroke
• 95 claims were form working in hot indoor conditions

As you can see, many of these claims could have been prevented with better management. There are so many excellent tools and checklists that you can use to ensure your workers and workplace is safe during our hot weather.

Here’s a simple fact sheet from Safe Work Australia which is a good guide to what to do with working in heat.

A more comprehensive resource on Working in Heat from Safe Work Australia can be found here. This details our responsibilities, managing risks and answers FAQs.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns about managing heat in your workplace, please contact your Austral broker.