Improving workplace safety for women. Provides skills in how to recognise hazards faced by women in a workplace to promote better safety for all employees.
A gender smart safety audit recognises that gender impacts on safety in workplaces. As more women enter previously male-only workplaces and start to take on traditionally male-only roles, the management and practice of safety in workplaces need to adapt.
Research into gender and safety shows that women face specific hazards in workplaces and that these are not always picked up by standard safety audits. Women may have different attitudes to risk. They may be working with machinery for which the work instructions still assume all operators are men. They may be doing jobs which are wrongly believed to be low risk. The statistics also show that women tend to receive less safety training than men.
The Women’s Safety Audit program provides skills in how to identify specific hazards faced by women in your workplace, and how to respond to reduce levels of risk. It aims to ensure your organisation is meeting its obligation to provide a safe working environment for all your employees.
The training program is typically delivered over 5 days. The consultant works closely with a core team of employees to teach them how to use the audit tools, and to facilitate the first women’s safety audit in a workplace. The collected baseline data is used to set measures and targets for improvements in women’s safety over time.
Additional remote and on-site support is available, to ensure ongoing learning for the newly established team of Gender Smart Safety experts in your organisation.
Understand why women’s safety is different.
Learn the process for conducting a women’s safety audit in a workplace.
Practise using the women’s safety audit tools (to collect baseline data).
Analyse the audit results.
Report and recommend, and establish measures for improvements.