By now it’s fair to assume that commercial property managers, body corporates, and commercial property owners understand they have exposure under health & safety.
Now that we are well over 10 years into the not so new legislation, do we have any better understanding on what this exactly means?
Yes, we sure do.
In short, it all comes down to Control & Influence. The party that has the most Control & Influence has the greatest deal of exposure. This does not automatically mean that a party who has little control and or influence has zero exposure – far from it. It just means that they have less exposure but by no way are exonerated from any liability.
A core duty for businesses that have control and influence is to communicate with all parties in a collaborative way. The legislation refers to it as ‘consult, coordinate and cooperate’. In laymen terms we refer to it as ‘The 3 C’s’.
Please note that the 3 C’s does not have a D for dictate. In fact, being dictatorial as appealing as that sometimes can be, is in fact counterintuitive to good risk management. It actually increases one’s exposure and risk under the Act.
The biggest challenge to driving useful communications is time or lack thereof. Most property managers we know of are busy people juggling a few too many balls. Priority typically is given to the fee paying client and solid contracts are in place. Where we see the short cuts taken is with managing contractors.
More on this in a later post.
For now though, we cannot stress enough that evidence is key. Without evidence you have minimal defense. Evidence means copies of communications; risk management; site inspections; competencies; etc
