Incident and Hazard Reporting

Elected Health and Safety Representatives (HSR) are provided with general user access to ERMS. For privacy reasons, HSRs are not able to be provided with elevated access to the system similar to Health and Safety Business Partners.

The person directly involved in the incident (Affected Person) can invite their local HSR to view their report following the instructions in ERMS (New User Experience) - Invite another person to view an incident or hazard report.

Incident and hazard reports in ERMS are not confidential. Once a report is submitted automatic emails are sent to a number of people, including:

1. The affected person (or the person who logged the report if it is a hazard report)
2. The responsible person (who will take action in response to the report)
3. The Health and Safety Business Partner for the business unit linked to the report
4. The Injury Management team (if an injury was sustained) and
5. Anyone invited to view an incident or hazard report by any of the above.

A report relating to discrimination, harassment or bullying, where the reporter would prefer to remain anonymous can be submitted via the Inappropriate Workplace Behaviour Line.

Where the issue relates to the system not working as expected or if you have any questions about ERMS, please report the issue to us in ServiceNow. (University username and password required)

1. Under My request is related to: select General OHS query
2. Subject please write ERMS - [module name] - issue
3. Details include all relevant details relating to the issue you are experiencing in ERMS, please include full-window screenshots if possible.

If you do not have access to Staff Services, please email the Health and Safety Services team for assistance.

Where your access requires review (ie. your single sign-on is not letting you into the system), please log an IT Application Access request.

When a report is closed (or modified) and you require further information on the investigation outcomes, you can contact the person responsible for actioning the report to discuss it directly with them.

Alternatively, you can open the report and review the Action Plan to see what the responsible person has done in response to your report. The Audit tab lists all people who have accessed the report and what they did, including email notifications and content amendments.

If you are directly involved in an incident and logged a report in ERMS, you can invite your local Health & Safety Representative (HSR) to view the report by following the instructions in ERMS (New User Experience) - Invite another person to view an incident or hazard report. You can also export the report to a PDF document and email this to your local HSR.

If you are unsure who your local HSR is, check out the HSR list.

The Privacy Statement must be accepted by clicking on 'I agree to the terms' each time ERMS is accessed, as the privacy statement content may change over time.

If you accidentally click 'I do not agree' the system will redirect you to https://www.unimelb.edu.au/. If this happens, simply return to ERMS and click on 'I agree to the terms' and you will be allowed into the system.

If you are having trouble locating your Business Unit in the dropdown options, please see ERMS - Find your Business Unit in Location drop down options for advice.

Anyone with access to ERMS can submit a report on behalf of another person. It is important that the correct Person Type is selected before entering the personal information details of the affected person.

The database can be searched for the correct person by:

• First name (or part thereof)
• Surname (or part thereof)
• Email address (or part thereof)

Once a report is submitted on behalf of another person, the report will populate the register of the person affected (if they have a university profile), the person responsible and the Health and Safety Business Partner responsible for the business unit linked to the report. It will not populate the submitters register, as once reported it is no longer accessible due to privacy requirements.

When reporting an incident or hazard on behalf of another, it is important to select the correct Person Type from the drop-down list on page 2 in order to be able to search for the correct person.

For guidance on Person Type definitions and when to use each option, please read ERMS - How to select correct Person Type (university credentials required).

Steps to print your incident or hazard report:

1. Open ERMS
2. Click on the Incident/Hazard Register
3. Open the Report you want to print
4. Once the report is open, click Print in the icon ribbon at the top of the page. This will create a pop-up window with the report as a printable version.
5. Click the Print icon on the pop-up window. From the print screen you can select to print the report or save it as a PDF which can be emailed to others.

Sometimes locations in the dropdown options are missing or inaccurate. The location information in ERMS is drawn from the University ArchiBus system. To add or correct location details so they appear in ERMS please contact the Estates Portal with the details of the amendment required.

It can take up to three days for information updated in the Estates Portal to reach ERMS.

The automatic ERMS email notification includes a link to ERMS.

1. Read the report and enter your immediate response (i.e. contacted the affected person to ask about their health, offer assistance and discuss their report)

2.  Investigate the report and record the results in ERMS.

3. Complete an Action Plan in ERMS. The action plan assesses the report and based on the assessment, introduces control measures to mitigate or minimise:
- the hazard from becoming an incident; or
- the incident reoccurring

4. The report in ERMS will remain in New status until the Action Plan has content saved in it.

The Action Plan will include:

• Identification of the risk rating based on the likelihood and consequence of the risk. The risk rating assists to determine and prioritise the corrective actions. The Risk Matrix document provides assistance in identifying the appropriate Likelihood and Consequence rating.
• Create tasks as required to minimise the risk and assign each task to a responsible person with a due date.  You can request Campus Management take action in response to an incident report by following the instructions in ERMS - Request Campus Management take action in response to an incident/hazard report.

When using the Search function to locate an individual, it is important the correct person is selected. This can be difficult if the search returns multiple options to the same name. Where multiple options are returned, please use the email address to ensure the right person is selected. Emails are unique to each individual.

An incident with a risk rating of:

• Low requires the responsible person to complete a basic investigation.
• Medium requires the responsible person to complete a basic or an ICAM incident investigation.
• High or Severe requires an ICAM investigation to be carried out with an incident investigation team that includes an ICAM-trained Incident Investigator. This is included on the Faculty and Chancellery page.

Health & Safety: Incident, injury, hazard reporting, and investigation requirements provide further instructions.

If ERMS is unavailable for any reason, the Incident investigation form can be used and the details transferred to ERMS as soon as practicable.

You can request Campus Services to take action in response to an incident or a hazard report by forwarding the email from ERMS regarding your incident/hazard to us-campusservices@unimelb.edu.au. Campus Services will review the incident/hazard report provided and either:

• Raise a work order and advise you of the work order number via email, or
• Respond and clarify if Campus Services does not hold the responsibility for the requested action.

Instructions in ERMS - Request Campus Service take action in response to an incident/hazard report.

If you have a planned leave, it is important to delegate your ERMS incident/hazard register responsibilities to another appropriate person to ensure any reports submitted during your leave are actioned. The ERMS - Delegate incident/hazard responsibilities to another while on leave instructions will assist in this delegation.

When you return from leave, please remember to reinstate your responsibilities.

Unfortunately, you cannot change a hazard report to an incident report, or visa versa.

You can link an existing hazard report to an existing incident report, and visa versa. To link reports, follow the steps outlined below:

1. Open ERMS
2. Open Incident/Hazard Register
3. Find the report you want to link another report to
4. In the Command column on the right, click on the Link Hazard or Link Incident icon (they are the same icon)
5. Complete the information in the pop-up box (ensure you have the number of the report you want to link so you can search for it)
6. The link between reports will be recorded in the Audit tab within the report

Transfer a report by reassigning the report to a more appropriate person by;

1. Open the Incident/Hazard Register
2. Click Filter, enter the report number then click Apply
3. Under Command, select Edit from the drop-down
4.  Click the Next icon until you reach the Assign to section
5. Click on the search icon to select the new Responsible Person
6. Once done, click on the Save icon at the end of the report

The new Responsible Person will receive an email from ERMS stating they have been assigned a report to action.

Sometimes a report needs to be reopened in order for further information to be added. When this happens, following the ERMS - How to reopen an incident/hazard report guidance to reopen the report.

Although many areas of a report can be amended by the person responsible for the report (all amendments are recorded in the Audit tab), the following information can only be amended by an ERMS System Administrator:

• Date and time of event
• Person Type
• Person Affected
• Location

If you are responsible for a report and you notice any of the above items is inaccurate, please email Health & Safety Services with the details that require amendment.

There are a few reasons why a report is not visible or disappears* from your register (reports will always populate the register of the person affected and the person responsible):

1. The report is submitted on behalf of another person
   • As soon as you submit a report on behalf of another person, your involvement in the report is complete. The report will not populate the submitter's register unless they have assigned themselves as the responsible person.
2. The report relates to a student
   • Student profiles are linked to a Business Unit at Faculty level . You may not have access this level in ERMS. Your local Health and Safety Business Partner will be able to assist in locating the report if it is at Faculty level.
   • The Student profile in StudentOne is linked to an inactive Faculty so the Business Unit in ERMS defaults to The University of Melbourne and needs to be amended before the report will populate the correct register.
3. The report has been transferred
   • When the responsible person for a report is reassigned from you to another person, it will no longer be visible in your register.
   • If the local Health and Safety Business Partner reassigns the report it will move from your register to the new person responsible. It is expected that the local Business Partner would contact the person originally responsible before reassigning it.

The Business Unit of a report in ERMS can only be amended by an ERMS System Administrator.

If you are responsible for a report and you notice the business unit is inaccurate, please email Health & Safety Services with the following information:

1. report number
2. correct business unit