Workplace Procedures

Workplace procedures describe how something should be done. Practice describes how it is done. The gap between them opens quickly and it is where most incidents sit.

Drift is not usually laziness. A procedure written for full staffing gets adapted when two people are away. A step designed for old equipment survives the equipment. A workaround invented once becomes the method because it is faster and nothing has gone wrong yet.

The organisation only finds out after an incident, when the investigation reveals that nobody has followed the documented process for two years.

The control for this is unglamorous. Ask the people who do the work to walk you through what they actually do, with no consequence attached to the answer, then change either the procedure or the practice. Both outcomes are legitimate.

Safe Work Australia covers consultation duties. This is general information rather than legal advice.

See Sentrient’s workplace policy templates and workplace compliance system.