Sentrient’s One-Minute Audit To Ensure Workplace Health And Safety

By now, you have become acquainted with the five core strategies industry leaders use to create highly successful businesses.

These core strategies we have seen in place in all highly successful organisations we have associated with. They also show up in our industry research.

These strategies are also tried and tested in and around our organisation.

The Five Things Highly Successful Businesses Do

Let us give you a brief of all the five points that highly successful businesses follow.

1. They make sure their employees feel safe not just physically but also mentally at the workplace.
2. They set clear-cut policies from the top down in a strict and unambiguous fashion.
3. They always stay on the right side of the law and do what is best for the business.
4. Investing in Human resources is their priority, and
5. They foster a culture that embraces technology.

It is always good to halt at times before we pace further even better.

It is now time for you to meticulously introspect how well your organisation is doing in these five aspects.

And for that, you do not need lengthy, laborious and expensive surveys.

We have curated a simple, one-minute audit that will provide you with a temperature check of how your people are feeling in the organisation.

How the One-Minute Audit Works

You may be familiar with the concept of a Net Promoter Score (NPS).

It’s a management tool that can be used to gauge the loyalty of a business’s customer relationship.

This one-minute audit is based on a similar approach to the NPS, but here we apply the survey to workplace culture. The one-minute audit

Five questions are asked, one on each of the factors that highly successful businesses do to create a better workplace.

Here’s how you score yourself:

The scores range between 1 and 5, with 1-3 being a detractor, 4 being a passive and 5 being a promoter.

So for each question, 1-3 is a score of -1, 4 is 0 and 5 is +1. A total (net) score that is 0 or higher is deemed good. A score that is 2 or higher is deemed excellent. A score of 4 or higher is exceptional.

The Five Audit Questions

Q1. How would you describe physical safety and your overall mental health at work?

1. Physical and mental safety are big problems around here, and nobody seems to really care.
2. People often bring up safety issues and talk about stress at work, but management ignores us.
3. It depends on what day of the week and the mood of the people in our business at the time.
4. I feel safe most of the time, but work pressures can be a bit much. Thankfully I’m supported most of the time if I need help.
5. I always feel safe and supported at work by my colleagues and manager. If I have an issue, I can speak up and be taken seriously.

Q2. How well do you think we set and maintain professional standards at work?

1. Standards, what standards? Anything goes around here.
2. It really depends on the mood of my manager at the time. What is okay today might not be tomorrow.
3. There seems to be a different set of standards for some staff and then another set again for others. It’s very inconsistent.
4. The standards are set, and we all try to maintain them. There’s a bit of disconnect across different teams, but for the most part, it works okay.
5. I am clear on the standards and what is required of me. I’m given feedback often, and continuous improvement is our goal.

Q3. Do you feel that you are working for a business that meets its legal obligations?

1. Given the chance, these guys would stretch the boundaries with just about everything, including the law.
2. I can’t really comment, but I do know that some things are ignored that don’t seem to be normal business practices.
3. I guess we are meeting our legal obligations, but I get a sense that we would be doing just the minimum to tick a box.
4. I couldn’t imagine us not meeting our legal obligations. Everyone seems very professional. Nobody has ever mentioned otherwise.
5. Staying compliant with the law is promoted within our work culture across every area of the business.

Q4. How seriously do we invest in your professional development?

1. I can’t remember anyone ever taking an interest in my professional development.
2. Every time I ask for help or some financial assistance with a development activity, my manager listens, but nothing happens.
3. I guess if I asked, I might be supported. I can’t really think of too much that I need, though. We don’t tend to do that type of thing around here.
4. When I ask for help or to attend some training, I seem to get supported. We’ve got a really good HR team, and that helps things as well.
5. I’ve never worked in business before that places so much focus on their staff. It feels like I am learning every day, and this is supported and celebrated by management.

Q5. What do you think about the way we use technology?

1. We are in the Stone Age around here.
2. I don’t really bother with technology in this workplace. Outside of our email and shared drive, nothing else is ever really considered.
3. We have some technology in place, but it’s a bit clunky. Nobody really knows how to use it, and everyone uses it differently across the organisation.
4. For the most part, we have the technology and systems we need. Systems tend to work well, and if we need support, it’s there.

Who Is Responsible for Workplace Health and Safety?

No matter what your score is, you can always do better to create a safe and healthy workplace.

The answer to the question of who is responsible for workplace health and safety should be you and the leaders of your organisation.

You should see that your business is compliant not because it is the legal thing to do but because it is the right thing to do.

Sentrient is a workplace compliance service provider, and we aim to allow pain-free and easy compliance for all organisations across Australia, regardless of their size and type.

Our services include an online workplace compliance management tool, workplace compliance courses, and a workplace policy builder.

You can purchase them directly here. For more info, call us at 1300 040 589 or email us at [email protected].

Reading Your Score

Each question adds +1, 0 or -1, so the net score runs from -5 to +5. Use this table to turn the number into action.

Is This the Same as a Workplace Health and Safety Audit?

No. A formal workplace health and safety audit checks your safety management system, records and controls against WHS laws and standards such as ISO 45001, and is usually done by a trained auditor. This one-minute audit is a quick culture pulse check. It tells you how people feel about safety, standards and support, which helps you decide where a formal audit or consultation should focus.

Remember that WHS laws require you to consult workers on health and safety matters, and psychosocial hazards such as poor support or unclear standards must be managed like physical ones. Staff feedback from an exercise like this can feed into that work.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is a one-minute workplace audit?

It is a five-question pulse check, based on the Net Promoter Score method, that asks staff to rate safety and wellbeing, professional standards, legal compliance, professional development and technology. Scores of 1 to 3 count as -1, 4 counts as 0 and 5 counts as +1.

2. How often should we run the one-minute audit?

Quarterly works well for most organisations. It is quick enough to repeat, and running it on a regular cycle lets you see whether changes are working.

3. Should the audit be anonymous?

Yes, where possible. People are more likely to give honest answers about safety, standards and their manager when they know their response cannot be traced back to them.

4. Does this replace a formal WHS audit or risk assessment?

No. It complements them. You still need to identify hazards, assess and control risks, consult workers and keep records under WHS laws.

Sources

Qualtrics: What is Net Promoter Score (NPS)?

Safe Work Australia: Consultation

Safe Work Australia: Psychosocial hazards

Last reviewed: October 2026

Learn More About Work Health and Safety with Sentrient:

• 4 Things to Consider for Supervisors and Managers When Managing Work Health and Safety Risks
• The Duty of a Supervisor and Manager to Provide a Safe and Healthy Workplace
• Effective Strategies For Workplace Health And Safety Training
• 7 Steps to Investigate a Complaint of Work Health and Safety Incidents in The Workplace
• New Compliance Course Released – Creating a Safe and Healthy workplace for Supervisors and Managers
• Important Work Health and Safety Considerations for Church Leaders