The University of Melbourne

THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE EMPLOYEE HEALTH & SAFETY REPRESENTATIVE MEETING

MEETING NO 4/2016 – 24th November 2016

A meeting of Employee Health & Safety Representatives was held on Thursday 24 th of November 2016 in the Ground floor Seminar Room C, Melbourne Dental School, University of Melbourne at 11.00 am.

PRESENT: Deanne Catmull (Melbourne Dental School) Chair Laura Ellett (Pathology) Minutes Steve Adams (Engineering) Heather Daykin (Pharmacology and Therapeutics) Matthew Grazia (RIC) Paula Mitchell (FMDHS Microbiology and Immunology) Paulo Vaz-Serra (Architecture) Brendan Chaplin (University Services) Yvonne Lai (VCA) Sarah Leahey (Biosciences) David Belton (Earth Sciences) Robert Hassan (SCC – Arts) Laurence Deam (Physics) Andrew Short (Mechanical Engineering) Dani Norman (US- Election Scrutineer) Stefan Delany (Ass. Director Health and Safety) Presenter

1. FORMAL MATTERS

1.1 Welcome/Apologies

The Chair welcomed everyone to the fourth meeting of the Employee Health & Safety Representatives for 2016. Apologies were received from: Garth Hardiman (University Services; Campus Services), Grace McCorkell (University Services; Academic Services), Krissy Savidis (University Services; External Relations), Joanna Nguyen (University Services; Project Services), Warick Hanrey (VCA and MCM), Ashley Cross (MCM), Darren Tucker (University Services; Infra Structure Services), Emma Read (Bio21)

2. ELECTION OF ONE HSR TO THE OHSC

An election of one Health and Safety Representative was undertaken, in accordance with the University’s Occupational Health and Safety Committee’s Standing Resolution 02/2009-07. The election was conducted in the presence of Ms Dani Norman (Observer/Scrutineer, Senior Health and Safety Consultant). One nomination was received for the position–Brendan Chaplin (University Services). Brendan was elected unanimously for the period of 3 years from the next University OHSC meeting. 3. PRESENTATION: 3. Presentation: Stefan Delaney (Associate Director: Health and Safety (FES)) HSR priorities for 2017 *(Last minute change)

 Stefan Delaney updated us on the projects Central OHS are tackling in the new year  TrainME is up and running as the new system for core compliance training. A couple of modules are available currently and more content will be developed and published shortly.  Working on making the Enterprise Risk Management System software suite functional for the university with the aims of it being responsible for things such as managing incident reports, allocating responsibilities, managing business risk and making a database of risk assessments available for all to share and clone. Aiming to be available to staff and students 1st Feb 2017.  Funding has been allocated to implement a new audit module responsible for cyclic event checklists etc.  Promapp’s progress is ongoing with 21-22 processes already available at the Staff Hub. Working Alone and in Isolation was published on Promapp this week. A significant volume of new processes are to be published next year.  Uploading chemwatch inventories is a work in progress  Several significant systems changes to Health and Safety are upcoming in 2017  A new HR15 form-Occupational Health Monitoring Tool is also on the horizon

 Stefan Delany asked for feedback from the HSRs present on other areas we think should be prioritised in 2017  Areas already identified by Health and Safety Professional Session included . Improving communicating Safety and Design standards for new construction projects . Improving sharing of information and knowledge (e.g. SOPs) effectively between the university levels (e.g. through YAMMER) . Improving management of shared spaces . Ready to Work project is aiming to help identify Health monitoring needs instead of using the HR15 form . Making Tool Kits available for Staff and Students to use  Suggestions from the HSRs: . Deanne Catmull:  Improve communication downstream of OHS advisors/managers  Better utilisation of YAMMER by encouraging and training staff how to use this tool  Better utilisation of Health and Safety website and communication flowthrough from the website to members of staff especially re. events that are happening  Try to improve recognition, reporting, addressing and statistics on students and staff impacted by mental health issues and bullying (include extra lines for psychological claims in Health and Safety report) and also make it easier for people to find help for their mental health issues. Will the Health and Safety team be able to access and exchange information on bullying claims made to HR? Stefan Delany responded that psychological claims are tabulated with other Health and Safety claims and that they can work towards capturing more HR data on bullying etc.  Develop clear structures for who to report to and how to deal with bullying/harassment complaints (some confusion surrounds the process as it stands and also the Safer Community program and their terminology)  Meeting of all HSRs and key Health and Safety stakeholders to engage and connect . Steve Adams:  Will there be someone overseeing the control of the new Risk Management system? There could be multiple risk assessments for the same task on the system but which one should be followed? Who controls the content? Stefan responded by saying there will be people responsible for making the best global risk assessment available on the database but local areas will be responsible for taking this and modifying it to their needs. It will be more transparent if there are inadequate risk assessments and these can be identified and improved . Paula Mitchell:  Improve staff access to help with bullying issues and where to direct complaints. Safer Communities webpage indicates it is for staff and students but the bullying service component is actually only for students. Stefan says Safer Communities deals with two streams of material 1) it collects information about behaviours of concern such as violence on campus from students, staff and the public 2) it directs students to assistance with bullying. Stefan also said HSRs can direct staff to counselling services within the university if they do not want to initially go through HR or local management.

4. CONFIRM MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING

The Minutes of Meeting 3/2016 of the Employee Health & Safety Representative Group held on Thursday 24th August 2016, were confirmed by Paula Mitchell (FMDHS Microbiology and Immunology) and seconded by the rest of the committee unchanged. 5. OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY COMMITTEE (OHSC)

5.1 What’s happening at the OHSC

 The Terms of Reference has been agreed upon and Deanne Catmull has requested a copy noting the reporting structure, notification and distribution of the minutes and reports etc.  Stefan Delany said HSRs can direct bullying complaints to local HR in writing and that it is beneficial to complete this as soon an issue has been identified. Sally Eastoe spoke of the need for HR staff to clarify the details of the bullying policy “off line” re the nature/type of advice they will provide.  The Working in Isolation Process has now been published on Promapp and Promapp can be accessed through the Staff Hub. There have been some technical issues with Promapp and staff are encouraged to test it out for themselves.  Requested that data from bullying/psychological/harassment complaints be included in safety data claims and reports presented to the OHSC.  WorkSafe audit showed <50% compliance in training – plan is that TrainMe will help improve compliance by coordinating staff and student training automatically. A number of core courses have already been released and more content will be avavilable in the new year. At the moment poor cross talk between the different training platforms is seeing poor compliance in some modules. Training and compliance are to be reported on every quarter  New risk management system will be introduced in the new year and it will include generic risk assessments for use and modification in local areas. FES will be responsible for all these new management systems.  Noted difficulties arising from not having combined HR/Infrastructure/Training and reporting system. Themis and HR systems are not communicating well – work in progress to improve this.  Infrastructure services and Campus services provided an update of activities planned to occur on campus (Deanne Catmull to circulate)  Achievements  Incident reporting  Incident types with percentage occurrence  Building projects and maintenance  Security and CCTV  The Health and Wellbeing team provided updates and plans for 2017  No Jab, No Play system at University Childcare  Multi-faith tolerance and behaviour  New disability strategy for students and staff is in progress  Mental Health Work Week  Plans for organisational strategy on mental health and disabilities  An increase in the amount of students presenting with anxiety and depression to counselling services needs a proactive approach

 A call to review After Hours procedures and processes in Engineering – are there wider problems with this procedure across campus? Would an App in phone to log after hours attendance improve issues?

5.2 Progress of items previously raised at the OHSC

 HSR re-election and notification (update) Stefan Delaney has communicated that central OHS can arrange reminders to Faculties to call for nominations and also help organise elections of HSRs and ensure that local areas without HSRs hold nominations on a yearly basis. Questions that arose included - How do we know nominations have been called for in HSR lists? Are mailing lists/distribution emails seen?

 Bullying and Psychosocial hazards (update) HSRs have been included on the listed people for employees to turn to in absence of a “Bullying advisor”. Deanne has written to Stefan agreeing that listing a HSR may be an appropriate alternative as opposed to a HR representative (in some cases) but if HSRs are to be listed, they need to be adequately resourced and trained in much the same way a Bullying advisor would have been in order for the process to be effective and in order to direct staff to the right places and provide clear advice and guidance. It has since been confirmed at the OHSC that HR is the appropriate department to contact for such issues but HSRs can be used as support and to check if HR is acting on complaints. HSRs can also direct staff to counselling services. Lodging incident reports has been suggested to make sure bullying is documented and acted upon but many people are reluctant to do that. Concerns have been raised that HR take too long to act on current complaints and it has been implied that a new checklist is being developed that will ensure more complaints are investigated.

5.3 Items to be raised at the OHSC

 Review of After Hours process – Engineering is finding the current process unworkable and have scheduled a meeting to resolve this with central OHS

 The issue around communicating Health and Safety events etc – the university webpage has great information on it but requires they regularly log onto the page to check for updates. Need improvement in the way we are notified about Health and Safety information to make it easier

6. OTHER BUSINESS

6.1 Issue resolution procedures (no update received as both parties were absent)

Linus Tan reported a local issue experienced in his area for advice. A Casual staff member has raised concerns about the use of MDF particle boards and laser cutters that produce formaldehyde vapours and dust particles. A best practice solution has been developed by Mark Friedlander which he will forward to Linus for reference and incorporation into their local SOP. Linus and Mark not present at this meeting to report back on progress. Deanne has seen an exchange of MSDS and procedures but no final document or decision yet

Raised at this meeting was concern that an OHS officer in Earth Sciences who is leaving the position will have their roles distributed amongst several other staff. Concern was voiced about the dilution of this role and how this would impact the power to drive Health and Safety change within that DWG. There are changes in the way the Health and Safety team communicates with staff causing issues.

Action item table:

Item Action Person Status Date Responsible Nov Working alone Stefan to Stefan Completed 2014 and in publish this Delaney Document isolation policy document published which will contain some terminology changes in Promapp.

Nov Terms of Stefan to draft Stefan Almost 2014 reference a template of Delaney Completed the new T.O.R Awaiting for the OHSC. final copy of Template is to the T.O.R include OHSC for approval reporting lines which states the reporting lines and how information will be circulated and dissesminat -ed to Allan Tait. Nov HSR Stefan to Stefan In progress 2014 promotion encourage and Delaney DWGs promote staff across the to become University HSRs across are slowly the University calling for and encouragin- g HSR nomination. Deanne Catmull would still like to see a welcome reception for all HSRs to be held once a year. Feb HSR roles and Stefan to Stefan Almost 2015 responsibilities forward Delaney Completed documents to Deanne has all supervisors been given describing the a copy of EXACT role of the TOR a HSR in the from workplace and Matthew how it differs Grazia (RIC) to an OHS on behalf of advisor/officer his local committee and will circulate this for other committees to use. It includes definitions and roles of all committee members. Once received, HSRs are to circulate to local committees for incorporati on into local TOR (best practice method) and will hopefully clarify remaining confusion Nov Bullying and Sally Eastoe to Stefan Partially 2014 Psychosocial write and Delaney completed hazards publish a new Sally Eastoe The existing Bullying policy policy has for the been University. modified to include HSRs as a support system but all complaints should be directed to managers or HR. HSRs can help direct people to HR or counselling services Feb HSR re- With the help Stefan Completed 2016 election and of a small HSR Delaney Stefan notification working group Deanne Delaney has policy a couple of Catmull communicat- years ago, ed that Deanne central OHS inserted some can arrange new reminders to information Faculties to into both the call for MPF 1189 nominations and organise document- elections of OHS HSRs on a representation yearly basis. and Committees He also agreed to set Procedure and up TOO The University reminders Safety for HSRs. guidance policy “How to elect an employee Health and Safety Representative ” to iron out issues surrounding the responsibilities of OHS Advisors/Mana gers to notify HSRs of upcoming re- election and responsibilities of HSRs to notify if they retire, are made redundant, shift DWGs etc. Aug Radiation PhD concerned Stefan In progress exposure over electronic Delaney 2016 radiation Andrew exposure from Short has 30+ yo reported equipment that the student is satisfied with the outcome. An expert has been organised to inspect machine. Stefan Delaney has offered to organise Steve Guggenhei- mer to assess situation and report to him and Andrew and provide an update next meeting

Aug Manual A security guard No Update injured himself 2016 Handling RSI No one injury (RSI injury) from continually present to pressing a report button to release the gates. An incident report was submitted but the HSR has not seen the close out procedure. Is this issue something of a manual handling /ergonomic concern now that most security boxes are unmanned nowadays? Aug CCTV cameras An area has No Update 2016 with no recently had No one signage CCTV cameras present to installed report without signage. What Paula is the stance Mitchell on this? suggested contacting SRS/Beams to get signs installed and also report to security Aug MDF use A Casual staff In progress. 2016 member has No one raised present to concerns provide about the use update. of MDF Deanne has particle boards seen an and laser exchange of cutters that MSDS and produce procedures formaldehyde but no final vapours and document dust particles. or decision Whilst there are extractors yet present in the room to clear the fumes, the extractors are known to fail at times. In addition, the Extractors over the cutting machine are not hooded to catch the dust. C&C Milling (Computer controlled drill) releases particles when the boards are cut spreading dust everywhere which is not in one isolated place. Nov Emergency Emergency Brendan Deanne 2016 Management Management Chaplin Catmull to Response Response Team gain more issue. Deanne Catmull information Procedures are via email not transparent and who to contact in emergency is unclear

6.2 Any other business

Deanne Catmull expressed her plans for 2017:  Try to encourage HSRs to attend these meetings. Do we need to have alternate meeting days next year (i.e. not just Thursdays)?  Reschedule meetings to avoid exams and school holidays etc. Proposal to arrange a survey to gauge peoples preferences for meeting times

7. NEXT MEETING: TBC (Dec/Jan)