Work health and safety, and environmental sustainability
What this domain covers
Work health and safety (WHS) in IT is about identifying hazards, assessing risk and applying the hierarchy of control. Typical hazards include manual handling of monitors and servers, electrical risk from power supplies and cabling, trips from loose cables, ergonomic strain from prolonged keyboard and mouse use, eye strain from screens, and psychosocial hazards such as workload and aggressive customers. Candidates must know the duty of care owed by PCBU (person conducting a business or undertaking), officers and workers, the role of consultation and reporting, and the correct response to an incident: make the area safe, report, record, then review.
Concepts to know
- Hierarchy of control: eliminate, substitute, isolate, engineering controls, administrative controls, PPE (last resort).
- Risk assessment: likelihood multiplied by consequence; review after change or incident.
- Safe work practices: correct lifting technique, cable management, RCDs, lockout/tagout before servicing, ESD precautions.
- Ergonomics: monitor height and distance, chair adjustment, breaks and posture.
- Environmental sustainability: energy efficiency, power management settings, virtualisation and consolidation, responsible disposal and e-waste recycling, data destruction before disposal, and compliance with waste and e-waste regulations.
Traps
Examiners often reward PPE being described as the least effective control, not the first choice. Another trap is forgetting that workers also have duties, such as following procedures and reporting hazards. Sustainability questions sometimes imply recycling is the only answer; the waste hierarchy (avoid, reduce, reuse, recycle, dispose) gives a stronger response. Do not claim that deleting files securely is the same as formatting a drive.
Worked example / rule of thumb
Rule of thumb: control at the source, not the person. For a technician repeatedly lifting heavy servers, the best answer is a mechanical hoist or team lift (engineering/administrative) rather than a back belt (PPE). For disposal, the correct sequence is data sanitisation, then recycling through a certified e-waste provider, with an asset record retained.
Study tip
For any scenario, name the hazard, the risk, the control level and the review step. That four-part answer covers most marking criteria.