# Responsibilities and Duties of Employees

The Health and Safety in Employment Act requires employees to take all practicable steps to ensure their own safety at work. This means that employees should not refuse to use safety equipment that their employer provides for their protection. Employees should not use equipment that is faulty or dangerous, such as unsafe power tools.

Employees should take all practicable steps to ensure that their actions or inactions do not cause harm to any other person. For example taking an action that creates an unnecessary hazard, such as leaving stock perched precariously on a shelf, would not be in keeping with this duty. Similarly, ignoring damaged electrical insulation would not be consistent with this duty.

Ensuring the safety of themselves and others means that employees should immediately report any situation that places themselves or others at risk. They must also report any injury or near miss. Employees have a duty to follow all health and safety procedures and to participate in improving procedures.

### Rights

Everybody has the right to expect that other people will comply with the law. But the Act also has more specific provisions. Employees can expect to receive the results of any monitoring that is related to their health or safety. Employees can also ask for the results of general monitoring of conditions in the workplace and the health and safety of employees. Employees do not have rights, of course, to information about other individual employees.

Employees can expect their employer to provide them with understandable information about:

- what to do if an emergency arises
- all identified hazards they may be exposed to and the steps to be taken to minimise the likelihood that the hazards will be a source of harm
- all identified hazards they may or will create in the course of their work, and the steps to be taken to minimise the likelihood that the hazards will be a source of harm
- the location of all necessary safety clothing, devices, equipment, and materials.

The Act requires all employees to have the knowledge and experience needed to carry out their work without causing harm. Alternatively, employees should be supervised by a person who has that knowledge and experience. The Act also requires that employees be adequately trained in the safe use of all plant, objects, substances, and protective clothing and equipment that they are, or may be, required to use or handle.

All employees are required by the Act to be given the opportunity to be fully involved in identifying hazards, and in eliminating, isolating, and minimising them. The Act also provides for employee involvement in developing procedures for dealing with emergencies or imminent dangers.

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