In 2022 the trending story for health and safety personnel continues to be the COVID-19 pandemic and the challenges it presents to employers and workplaces. It is estimated that these four trends will have a big influence on health and safety practices.

Mandatory vaccination

When implementing mandatory vaccination in the workplace, employers are required to do a risk assessment to identify employees who must be vaccinated and to then develop a vaccination plan, policies, awareness training and appropriate measures to implement the plan.

The obligations of employers regarding COVID-19 with regard to vaccinations are contained in the ‘Consolidated Direction on Occupational Health and Safety Measures in Certain Workplaces’ which were gazetted on 11 June 2021.

Mental health

The pandemic has had a negative impact on the mental health of people working across all professions. Engaging with employees regarding their well-being helps employers to understand the challenges faced by staff. Identifying those suffering from mental health concerns positions the employer to provide appropriate support.

Legal landscape

During the past two years we have seen several Health Regulations in the Occupational Health and Safety Act being reviewed and promulgated by the Department of Employment and Labour. This trend will continue into 2022.

More regulatory and legislative changes are expected in 2022. While many differences continue to grow between national policy and those enacted at local level, few can predict what the specific changes will be. It is however almost certain that flexibility will be necessary for companies to adapt to the new policies to come.

Digitalization

During these unprecedented times brought on by COVID and with all that’s happening in the world and South Africa, the time could not be better for a digital transformation. Several organizations will look at improving its systems by means of digital platforms. These platforms can assist as follows:

• Maintaining compliance: With digital technologies, “workflow” compliance becomes inherent.
• Adding competence management: Where you can ensure that you assign competent staff to carry out a risk assessment based on their experience of carrying out similar tasks.
• Compiling lessons learned, auditing and action tracking: If you have identified unexpected hazards associated with equipment or tasks, you can prompt all assessors to consider these hazards, whenever maintenance is carried out on that equipment, or when the hazardous tasks are performed. This offers a means to rapidly share lessons learned in a targeted way for maximum benefit.
• Driving policy into practice: Standardizing work scope and being able to track and catalog hazards and mitigation processes through digital libraries of reusable, approved content.

Conclusion

Health and Safety practitioners will have more challenges to overcome in the ever-shifting workplace environment.

Neil Enslin | Occupational Health and Safety Manager

Source:

https://www.thesafetymag.com/ca/news/opinion/what-are-the-trends-in-health-and-safety-for-2022/321226
https://www.gov.za/speeches/employment-and-labour-new-direction-regard-vaccination-workplace-14-jun-2021-0000