Workplace Health & Safety (WHS) Consultancy & Secondments

A WHS Management System includes:

• a well-thought-out set of policies and procedures to meet current legislation and the health and safety needs unique to your workplace.
• details of how these workplace safety solutions will be implemented.
• details of how safety documentation will be managed.
• systems for feedback on safety for continuous improvement.
• integration with other management systems to ensure WHS compliance across Australia.

A safety audit delivers peace of mind by ensuring Australian organisations are complying with the latest legislation, and doing their best for their employee’s health and safety while providing a line of defence in the case of workplace injury or illness. Our safety audit services, available in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and across Australia, ensure you have identified all workplace safety risks and hazards and have the systems in place to safeguard against these.

The audit checks that you have an appropriate safety management system in place to prevent workplace injury and illness, and that WHS policies and procedures are being followed.

The safety audit screens for due diligence and identifies any weaknesses in your WHS system that may lead to injury, illness or non-compliance fines.

In summary, a safety audit:

• Is a WHS screening for due diligence. By carrying out a safety audit, employers develop an understanding of current needs, and compliance in relation to these needs.
• Provides a WHS compliance report to relay any actions required to meet safety regulations.

WHS is an acronym for Work Health and Safety and OHS stands for Occupational Health and Safety, and both describe the safety of individuals in the workplace. There's no major difference between these terms as WHS is the new term that was introduced with the harmonised Work Health and Safety Act, which most states and jurisdictions have adopted.  

Victorian legislation is still termed the Occupational Health and Safety Act, and hence OHS is still widely used in Victoria. International standards such as ISO45001:2018 also still refer to OHS. 

In both cases, Work or Occupational Health and Safety is concerned with protecting the safety, health, and welfare of people engaged in work or employment.

Establishing a WHS Management System helps a workplace meet its duties and responsibilities under its’ state WHS legislation and regulations. 

ISO 45001:2018 is the international standard in the management of work, health and safety and specifies the conditions for a workplace’s system. We support businesses across Australia to align with ISO or to elevate their systems to the next level to achieve certification. 

AltiusWHS is a cloud-based software solution that makes it easy for businesses, large and small to comply with their WHS obligations and manage their day-to-day WHS operations. Responsive design means AltiusWHS can be accessed easily via laptop, desktop, tablet or mobile.

AltiusWHS includes modules with all the online tools you need, covering: Incident Notification and Investigation; Monitoring Hazards and Corrective Action; Safety Planning and Compliance; Risk Management and Risk Registers; Customised Inspections and Audits; Human Resources Management; Inductions and Training; Chemical Management; Communications and Noticeboards; Reporting and Contractor Management.

AltiusWHS can be paired with Altius support for extra peace of mind and ease in operating your WHS Management System.

• AltiusWHS ensures legal compliance: It’s aligned with the latest legislative framework.
• It saves money: Capturing and recording your safety activity keeps your workplace productive, and compliant and can assist in keeping your workers’ compensation costs down.
• It saves time: With all the tools you need to capture safety activity and monitor your progress simply, you’ll spend less time tracking how your workplace safety is going.
• AltiusWHS provides peace of mind: By making it easy to capture hazards, actions and incidents on any device and log your response, and providing resources backed by up-to-date evidence and legislation.

• Altius Engaged Return to Work Coordinators can provide first-response to workplace injuries logged in AltiusWHS in ‘real-time’.
• Customised notifications for workplace incidents can connect to your support network - this may include the rehabilitation provider, Return to Work Coordinator or insurance broker.
• You can connect your employees to our Employee Assistance Program (EAP) by providing employees access to support through the online platform.
• Connection to expertise during a crisis requiring Critical Incident Response support.
• Data collection and analysis can provide strategic workplace solutions to address WHS and workers' compensation trends.
• We can integrate the platform so that it connects you to your insurance broker for assisted claims and policy management.

• Everything is stored in the cloud for easy access, visible via an easy-overview dashboard.
• Responsive design means the system self-configures to suit any device.
• You’re able to build the system to best suit your business needs.
• Industry-leading security systems safeguard your documentation.
• Email notifications and reminders keep your safety plans on track.
• With added features including a virtual file box, language translation, time zone management and social media integration, AltiusWHS has you covered.

• Safety Planning and Compliance: Establish and allocate compliance tasks unique to your workplace and monitor their progress via the dashboard.
• Customised Inspections and Audits: With functions to help you create, schedule and ensure inspections are completed.
• Monitoring Hazards and Corrective Action: Input, track and monitor such actions and improvements, complete with reminders.
• Human Resources Management: Store worker emergency contacts, training details, workers’ compensation documents and performance management information in the one accessible location.
• Risk Management: Identify and keep track of risk in the workplace whilst ensuring associated corrective actions are tracked and completed via an integrated risk register.
• Chemical Management: Keep Safety Data Sheets (SDSs) up-to-date and available to workers. Upload, update and store important hazardous chemical information in the cloud for easy access.
• Training: Upload relevant training documentation and certifications, and track expiry dates to know your people are properly trained.
• Communications: Share important documents with workers, contractors, and others, and request acknowledgement of receipt. Handy for inductions, contractor management, and capturing completion information.
• Noticeboard: Keep your team up-to-date with the latest news, announcements, and important information, by configuring your own virtual safety noticeboard.
• Site Attendance: Our workplace or site attendance register is specially designed for your COVID-19 workplace response.
• Reporting: Oversee, track and report on the progress of your safety management system, in real time! Harness the power of your data, identifying trends and capturing insights to ultimately improve your safety performance.
• Analytics: Visualise your desired insights and detect future trends via customisable, interactive dashboards.
• Covering your Insurance Needs: Manage insurances, registrations, licences and certificates with useful reminders as expiry dates approach.
• Contractor Management: Using the functionality of our records management modules.

Safe Work Australia’s paper “Health and Safety Management Systems - An Analysis of System Types and Effectiveness” reported that the cases with more highly developed health and safety management systems are found to share a range of key distinguishing characteristics:

• Have senior managers take an active role in health and safety.
• Encourage supervisor involvement in health and safety.
• Have health and safety representatives actively involved in health and safety management system activity.
• Have effective health and safety committees.
• Have a planned approach to hazard identification and risk assessment.
• Give high priority and consistent attention to control of hazards at source.
• Have a comprehensive approach to workplace inspections and incident investigations.

A business should consider seconding a WHS professional when it needs extra, specialist safety support to maintain compliance, manage risk or cover gaps in internal resourcing.

This is particularly useful when:

• You need immediate expertise for a new site, project, tender, or regulator focus on WHS.

• Your internal WHS staff are on leave, overloaded or hard to recruit, and you still need continuity in safety operations.

• You’re going through change (e.g. rapid growth, restructuring, introducing new processes or equipment) and want a WHS specialist embedded with your team.

• You want to strengthen safety culture and tighten documentation, incident response and WHS management systems, without committing to a permanent hire.

At Altius, WHS/OHS resourcing and secondments provide experienced WHS professionals to fill temporary or long-term roles, ensuring continuity and expertise in your safety operations.

WHS secondments can range from short-term support for specific projects or peak periods to long-term arrangements that function like an in-house resource.

Altius structures secondments around your needs, typically:

• Short-term secondments: for audits, system improvements, regulator actions, or to stabilise WHS after an incident.

• Medium to long-term secondments: to fill vacant roles, support multi-site operations, or embed new WHS systems and processes.

Because the service is flexible, you can adjust the duration and hours as your internal capacity, projects and risk profile change, often alongside broader Workplace Health & Safety services.

A WHS secondment is usually set up for a fixed period, but the arrangement can be extended or renewed if it continues to meet the needs of your business.

Many organisations start with a defined engagement and then decide to keep a seconded WHS professional in place for longer, for example, while a major project is underway or while they recruit and induct a permanent team member. A secondment can also shift into a recurring consulting arrangement if you find that ongoing part-time or project-based support works better than a full-time internal role.

The main requirements for a WHS secondment in Australia are a clearly defined role, suitably qualified WHS professionals and alignment with your WHS obligations and internal governance.

For most organisations, this includes:

• Clear scope and reporting lines: defining duties, authority, decision-making boundaries and how the seconded WHS professional works with your leaders.

• Relevant WHS expertise: Altius secondments are delivered by WHS/OHS-trained allied health and safety professionals with experience across industries and state-specific legislation.

• Integration with your WHS system: ensuring their work aligns with your existing policies, procedures and Safety Management System (or supporting you to develop one).

• A service agreement: setting expectations around confidentiality, duties, timeframes and performance.

Even with a seconded WHS professional in place, the primary duty of care remains with the business or PCBU, so the secondment is designed to support your existing responsibilities rather than replace them.

Altius integrates seconded WHS professionals by embedding them directly into your organisation, so they work as part of your team rather than as outside observers. This means the consultant joins your day-to-day safety operations, sits in relevant meetings, and works closely with your leaders, supervisors and frontline staff. They use your existing systems and processes, whether these are paper-based or supported by a platform such as AltiusWHS, and then help you strengthen policies, procedures and documentation as they go.

Because they are on the ground, seconded consultants can see how work is actually done and adapt their approach to your culture and structure. Over time, this helps your internal people build skills and confidence, as they learn from the consultant and take on more of the work themselves. Where they identify gaps that need extra support, they can link in other Altius services, such as manual task training or safety management system development, so improvements are practical and sustainable.

A WHS consultant helps you design, implement and improve your WHS program so it manages risk, meets legal requirements and genuinely protects your people.

Typical activities include reviewing and strengthening WHS management systems, developing and refining policies and procedures, running risk assessments, and making sure documentation such as incident reports, risk registers and corrective actions is in place and up to date. Consultants also support incident investigations and root cause analysis, advise on controls, and work with leaders to build a stronger safety culture.

Depending on your needs, they can help you select or configure tools like AltiusWHS to manage WHS tasks more efficiently, or work alongside other Altius specialists in areas such as workplace rehabilitation and psychology risk assessment when issues cross over into injury management, wellbeing or leadership behaviour. The aim is always a practical, integrated approach that fits the realities of your workplace.

A WHS consultation is a structured piece of work where a WHS consultant takes time to understand your risks and current systems, then works with you to plan realistic improvements.

A typical process starts with conversations about your goals, recent incidents, audit outcomes and any regulator attention. The consultant will usually review your WHS management system, including policies, procedures, risk assessments and incident records, then visit your sites to see how work is actually done. They may speak with managers, health and safety representatives and workers to understand behaviours, communication and culture.

The consultant identifies gaps, areas of strength and practical opportunities to reduce risk. You will receive clear recommendations and an agreed action plan. In some cases, that plan may involve follow-on support, such as developing new procedures, introducing a WHS software platform, running targeted training or arranging a short-term secondment so the changes can be implemented efficiently.

Yes. WHS consultants are engaged specifically to help businesses understand and meet the WHS or OHS requirements that apply in their state or territory.

They stay across the relevant legislation and supporting guidance, then check that your systems, documentation and day-to-day practices line up with those obligations. This can include reviewing whether your policies reflect local law, making sure WHS risk assessments and incident processes are suitable for your industry, and advising on any differences that apply if you operate in more than one jurisdiction.

Where consultants identify gaps, they can help you update documents, train leaders and workers, or refine your WHS management system so that compliance is built into how you operate, not treated as a separate task.

WHS consultants help businesses meet psychosocial safety obligations by bringing psychological risk into the same structured process that is used for physical hazards. This usually starts with identifying psychosocial hazards such as high job demands, low control, poor support, bullying, unresolved conflict, unclear roles or poorly managed organisational change. Consultants then help you assess the level of risk and look at how work is designed and managed, rather than focusing only on individual resilience.

They support you to build controls into policies, role design, performance processes and leadership practices so that psychological safety is treated as part of your WHS system. Training for managers and teams can reinforce early intervention, respectful communication and help-seeking. In more complex situations, WHS consultants may work alongside organisational psychologists or an Employee Assistance Program, so you address both the systemic drivers and the support needs of individuals.

WHS consultants can develop, review and update almost any document that sits within your WHS management system.

Common examples include core WHS policies and procedures, risk registers and risk management plans, incident and hazard reporting templates, investigation reports, inspection checklists, audit tools, safety plans and compliance schedules. They may also help with training and induction records, contractor and chemical safety documentation, and records that show how you consult with workers, such as meeting minutes or toolbox talk summaries.

In many organisations, consultants use or help implement a system such as AltiusWHS so that these documents and records are easy to access, maintain and report on. This makes it simpler to demonstrate what is in place during internal reviews or external audits.

Yes. WHS consultants often help businesses get ready for external audits, regulator inspections or formal certifications by checking systems in advance and guiding any improvements.

Preparation usually involves a pre-audit review where the consultant looks at your policies, procedures, risk assessments, incident management processes and records to see how they line up with the relevant standard or legal requirement. They may then visit sites to confirm that what is written is actually happening in practice.

The consultant will highlight any gaps or weaknesses and suggest practical changes, such as clarifying responsibilities, improving documentation, updating risk controls or strengthening consultation records. If you are working toward a standard like ISO 45001, they can help you understand what auditors will expect and how to present your evidence clearly. Some organisations also use a temporary WHS secondment during busy audit periods, so there is enough capacity to make changes and keep business as usual running smoothly.

Outsourcing WHS can give you specialised support that is flexible and often more cost-effective than recruiting a full-time internal role, especially if your needs change over time.

With outsourced WHS, you have access to experienced consultants who are already familiar with legislation, industry practices and common system weaknesses. You can increase or reduce their involvement as projects, audits, or incidents arise, rather than carrying a fixed salary year-round. An external consultant can also provide a fresh perspective on your culture and systems, which can be harder for someone embedded internally.

Another benefit is access to a broader range of capabilities. When you work with a provider like Altius, your primary consultant can draw on colleagues in areas such as manual task training, rehabilitation services and organisational psychology if a particular issue needs deeper expertise. For some organisations, the ideal model is a small internal WHS presence supported by outsourced consultants or secondments during high demand or high risk periods.