Written accounts of your work health and safety activities, near misses and incidents are important records for your business. Document what you’re doing to maintain and improve your work health and safety. Recording your work health and safety activities helps you monitor the performance of your business and meet your legal requirements.

Employer responsibilities

You will need to keep records for:

• all notifiable incidents
• all hazardous substances / chemicals with a hazardous substance register and an asbestos register (if these are in your workplace)
• plant registration documents
• tests and inspection reports for items of plant.

It’s also useful to keep records of:

• your hazard identification, risk assessment and implemented controls with a hazard and risk register and a risk control action plan
• servicing and maintenance of all items of plant and equipment
• workers’ induction and any training.

These records can help demonstrate what you have done to manage safety in your workplace. This can be important if an incident occurs requiring investigation.

Worker responsibilities

Workers need to:

• actively participate in induction and training
• report safety issues.

Keeping records checklist

Check the safety of your business by completing our work health and safety checklist to identify hazards at your workplace and determine which areas you may want to start with for improvement.