PErforM online implementation workshop

Manual tasks' enduring toll

Queensland workplaces continue to pay a heavy price for hazardous manual tasks more than a decade after the introduction of harmonised work health and safety laws. Sprains and strains, the vast majority linked to lifting, carrying, pushing or pulling, still top the injury list, mirroring national patterns where body-stressing incidents exceed half of all serious compensation claims.

In 2024-25 the workers' compensation scheme supported nearly 75,000 accepted statutory claims and paid out $1.7 billion in benefits, with physical injuries averaging $13,000-$14,000 each and durations often stretching beyond 50 days. High-risk industries bear the brunt: nurses and aged-care workers handle patients, construction crews shift materials, miners and food processors repeat forceful movements. The result is not only acute pain but gradual-onset conditions that sideline experienced staff and inflate recruitment and training costs.

The legal framework is unambiguous. The Work Health and Safety Regulation requires PCBUs to manage musculoskeletal risks, and the 2021 Hazardous Manual Tasks Code of Practice sets out the required steps: identify tasks involving repetitive or sustained force, high force, awkward postures or vibration; assess exposure; then eliminate or minimise through design, mechanical aids or process change. Enforcement is active; inadequate controls have triggered improvement notices, prohibition orders and prosecutions with six-figure penalties.

Yet many businesses, especially smaller ones, struggle to move beyond generic training. The non-obvious tension is cultural. Top-down risk assessments often produce controls that workers ignore because they slow the job or feel impractical. Participative approaches flip this: frontline teams map their own tasks, test solutions and own the outcomes. Early adopters, including local councils, have recorded sharp falls in lost-time injury frequency rates, sometimes dropping from double to single digits, while uncovering efficiency gains such as reduced double-handling.

The trade-off is time. Implementation requires management sign-off, trained facilitators and protected hours for workshops, precisely when labour shortages push rosters tighter. Inaction, however, compounds: higher claim volumes feed premium pressures across the scheme, erode return-to-work rates and expose leaders to personal liability in the most egregious cases.