Strengthening workplace health and safety during National Safe Work Month
Every October, National Safe Work Month shines a spotlight on workplace health and safety across Australia. Coordinated by Safe Work Australia, the initiative encourages organisations of all sizes and industries to focus on building safer, healthier workplaces for everyone.
The 2025 theme, Safety: every job, every day, reflects this vision and underscores that safety should be embedded into daily tasks and is an important reminder that workplace safety matters every day.
Safe Work Australia conveniently breaks down areas of focus that organisations can apply weekly during October, including:
Download the National Safe Work Month activity kit for practical ideas and solutions on how to maintain safety in your workplace.
Why do we need National Safe Work Month?
Work-related injuries and illnesses carry real human and financial costs and no job should ever lead to injury or death. Hundreds of workers are fatally injured in Australia each year, and in 2023, it was reported that there were 139,000 serious workers’ compensation claims, according to Safe Work Australia.
These figures highlight that even with progress, workplace health and safety remains a high-stakes issue. Safety isn’t just about ticking boxes. It’s a fundamental human right and business imperative, and legal obligation.
If your business operates in sectors like mining, transport, construction or any safety-critical environment, National Safe Work Month is the perfect opportunity to weave safety deeper into your culture and routine tasks. For AusHealth Diagnostic clients, this is a chance to reinforce compliance, particularly around drug and alcohol policies, promote proactive safety measures using testing and risk management, and engage workers in meaningful dialogue about workplace health and safety.
How businesses can get involved
Safe Work Australia provides an activity kit with tools to support participation. It walks through a full month of workplace safety discussions, focusing on identifying hazards, assessing risks, controlling risks and reviewing controls.
You can also host a SafeTea event. This is a work health and safety-focussed conversation in the workplace during a morning or afternoon tea, lunch, breakfast, meeting. Check out the SafeTea resources here.
Other ideas include running toolbox talks or safety meetings, sharing posters around the workplace, holding quizzes, appointing safety ambassadors, or even hosting joint workshops with other businesses in your community.
At AusHealth Diagnostics, we encourage workplaces to keep safety front of mind by making a clear commitment to their people.
This can include:
- providing thorough training
- supervision while actively monitoring worker safety
- regularly reviewing and improving the way you consult with your teams
- and building an accredited work health and safety management system that sets a strong foundation.
It also means going beyond compliance by introducing health and wellness programs that look after both physical and mental wellbeing, and ensuring every worker feels supported, including culturally and linguistically diverse staff, who benefit from resources in their preferred language.
Part of your wellbeing program and your workplace policies should include drug and alcohol testing services.
National Safe Work Month is an invitation and opportunity for businesses to make safety part of culture, not just compliance. By practicing safety every day, we can reduce fatalities, serious injuries and illnesses, ensuring every worker gets home safely.
Use the month of October, and beyond, to build awareness, improve practices and foster a workplace where safety is part of every job, every day. As Safe Work Australia’s CEO Marie Boland says, “A safe and healthy workplace is a fundamental right for all workers… commit to making work health and safety core to how you do business this national safe work month and beyond.”