Welcome to Plan and Organise Work. Many tasks we complete, whether it is for study, a wedding, a party or, in this case, engaging in construction, require careful planning and organising. It is important you develop the basic knowledge and understanding of how to effectively plan and organise these tasks to align with working on a construction site. Many construction jobs require several tasks to complete; therefore, you must be organised before your start.
As you progress through the learning, you will learn:
- The relevant policies, procedures and legislation to plan and organise work and its purpose
- How best to break down the overall work task into component tasks and then organise them in a logical order
- The importance of working effectively with team members to ensure tasks run safely and efficiently, including how to prioritise and schedule time.
- How to create and utilise relevant plans and specifications to then address tools, equipment resources and PPE
- Recordkeeping.
As a student studying construction, this module underpins the basic skills and knowledge of undertaking routine work tasks under the direction of experienced workers. Once you have established your understanding of the foundations of these skills, you will be able to put them into practice.
For many of you, planning and organising of work tasks may be a fairly new concept, and for some, the foundations of planning and organising may already be familiar.
As a student studying construction, you must understand, the work is being carried out a particular way for a particular reason. In other words, tasks are not just implemented for the sake of it or ‘just because.’
All tasks must undergo careful planning and organising yes, but they also need to comply with the following:
- Legislation and regulations
- Standards
- Company policies and procedures.
Fun fact!
It is the responsibility of your employer (by law) to provide you with adequate and functioning personal protective equipment.
Remember, if there is anything you are unsure of, do not be afraid to ask.
Legislation versus regulations
You will have at some stage heard the terms legislation and regulations mentioned, but what are they? What are they for and why are they relevant to construction?
A governing authority sets down legislation and, before it has been approved, needs to pass through the hands of relevant personnel to make it legally binding. This means all people involved must be compliant. Legislation is relevant to communities and industries. For example, legislation has been carefully developed and regulated specifically to suit the construction industry (other industries have their own sets of policies, procedures, regulations and legislation). Industry legislation is in place to ensure all people involved are performing within compliance. Any non-compliance can have serious repercussions such as heavy fines, termination of job position, and even loss of building licence.
Regulations put the legislation into practice. The regulations undergo as much careful consideration as the legislation as they coexist. The regulations specifically outline the legal requirements that are relevant to a specific industry.
The following list outlines some examples of the National Regulations relevant to the construction industry:
- Building Act 2004 (and relevant state and territory instruments)
- Building Regulations (relevant to each state/territory)
- Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (and relevant state and territory instruments)
- Work Health and Safety Regulations 2011 (and relevant state and territory instruments)
- The Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (and relevant state and territory instruments)
- The Environmental Planning and Assessment Regulations 1979 (and relevant state and territory instruments)
- Other state and territory-based legislation and policies affecting buildings as described in NCC2019 (See Schedule 1)
- Relevant local laws depending on the local government area.
Activity: Before moving onto the next topic, look up your local legislation and browse a handful of different laws. For example, this could be to do with specific signage your area must display or perhaps specific additional documentation.
Standards
Standards are published documents that outline specific procedures relevant to industries to achieve reputable products, functioning systems, and safety. Standards are much like goals, carefully developed to be achievable for an industry. On their own, they are voluntary, and members outside of a company do not generally need to follow them because they have no legally binding obligation. However, when the standards have been developed on a national level, such as the Australian Standards, they are then cited in legislation, therefore, become mandatory to follow.2 3
The following are some examples of Australian Standards that are relevant to the building and construction industry.
- AS1288 Glass in Buildings
- AS 3786 Smoke Alarms
- AS 3500 Plumbing and Drainage
- AS 1657 Stairs
- AS 3700 Masonry Structures
- AS 2870 Residential Slabs and Footings
- AS 3610 Formwork for Concrete
- AS 3740 Waterproofing of Wet Areas within Residential Buildings
- AS 3959 Construction of Buildings in Bushfire-Prone Areas.
Company policies and procedures
All companies have policies and procedures in place. Depending on the industry, some of these policies and procedures are provided in an employee handbook, displayed within an office space, classroom, or a folder with the policies in their entirety accessible to staff given time. Your employer must have their policies and procedures accessible at any time.
At the time of your employment, you are likely to receive an employee handbook that clearly outlines some of the following policies:
- Work health and safety
- Code of Conduct
- Anti-discrimination and equal employment opportunities
- Personal Protective Equipment
- Employee performance management
- Plant and equipment
- Workplace Surveillance
- Smoking
- Motor Vehicle Policy.
Once you have received your employee handbook, you will likely need to sign that you have read, understood, and acknowledged company policies and procedures.
Why do we need policies and procedures?
These are in place to protect the rights of the employer and the employee should any work issues arise. Consider the following scenario.
Bob has just been employed as an apprentice with a commercial homebuilder. The employer has provided the relevant PPE to take with him when he is on site. Upon commencement of employment, Bob was asked to sign each policy and procedure (including the PPE policy) to acknowledge he has understood them. The policy also states that workers are required to wear specific types of PPE (safety boots and safety hats) while on-site, or they will be asked to leave and return with them; this he also signed in acknowledgement.
One morning, he has turned up on-site without the correct footwear or his safety helmet. The site supervisor asks him to leave the site and is not to return until he has the appropriate attire. Bob is furious as he has driven quite a distance for the job and now needs to leave the site only to come back. In his frustration, he tells the site supervisor that he has no right to dismiss him from the worksite and threatens further action.
In this scenario, had the company not had the policies and procedures in place, Bob would have been within his rights to take the matter further. However, because the company did have them in place, and they had been signed and acknowledged by Bob, the supervisor had an obligation to follow through with removing Bob from the job site.
Companies by law need to have policies and procedures in place to ensure they are aligned with what has been set out by the Legislation, regulation, and standards.
Policies versus procedures
Policies and procedures are often found coexisting. However, they are different, and this is explained as follows:
Policy
A policy is very much a rule that is in place by the company derived from the regulations relevant to their industry, in this case, the regulations need to be relevant to the building and construction industry.
The is an example of what a Work Healthy Safety policy would appear like. This one has specifically been derived from Safe Work New South Wales. These, however, may look different according to your own state or territory. It is important you familiarise yourself with these types of documents to ensure you understand the purpose of the policies.
WHS FORM 01: WORK HEALTH AND SAFETY
WHS Policy
UP Building and Construction Pty Ltd is committed to providing and maintaining a safe and healthy work environment for all staff as it is defined under legislation as:
- employees
- contractors and,
- visitors including members of the wider community.
Through regularly reviewing our processes and health and safety performance, we strive to continue to improve our workplace safety standards and safety culture.
Our goal is to eliminate incidents and injuries in the workplace and to create a healthy and positive workplace environment. We are dedicated to supporting both the physical and psychological well-being of staff within our workplaces.
To achieve our health and safety objectives we aim to:
- Abide by WHS Legislation (including industry Standards and Codes of Practice).
- Consult and communicate with workers regarding Health & Safety issues regularly and wherever possible.
- Meet the requirements of ISO 45001: 2018.
- Enhance the skills, knowledge, and commitment of our workers, who include our employees, contractors and suppliers through relevant training and professional development.
- Apply Risk Management processes that identify, evaluate and control risks with the specific aim of hazard elimination or the reduction of risk.
- Provide each employee with appropriate Health & Safety training, equipment, and support to consistently perform their duties in a safe manner.
- Support all workers in understanding and dutifully undertaking their Health & Safety duty of care / due diligence responsibilities.
- Set clear safety objectives and targets to support the continuous improvement of our Health & Safety system.
- Be acknowledged as a good corporate citizen concerned for the safety and well-being of all our workers, contractors, and visitors.
The management team are personally dedicated to the consistent improvement of safe working practices at UP Building and Construction Pty Ltd.
All workers, contractors and suppliers associated with our operations must recognise, contribute to, and abide by, commitment to workplace health and safety.1
Name and position: ________________ Signature: _______________ Date: __/__/__
Procedure
The procedure is essentially the process tasks are carried out. Each company will have procedures in place they have developed and when you agree to employment, their procedures are measures you are obligated to follow. Procedures are usually derived from a policy or a standard.
Similarities
One of the fundamental similarities with policies and procedures is their objective of achieving safety, compliance, and efficient functionality of a business.
Each construction company will have their own set of policies and procedures that have been put in place. They have been specifically and carefully selected to ensure they are compliant and achievable by team members, consumers, and other relevant personnel. Any company that has developed policies and procedures will have likely have sought legal advice to implement them to ensure they are within their rights to implement them.
It is important to understand, that depending on your state or territory, regulations, legislation, acts or standards may be slightly different. You will need to ensure you have familiarised yourself with those that are relevant to your state or territory.
