Administrative controls
Administrative controls are WHS measures that change how people work (procedures, training, signage, rosters, exclusion times) rather than removing the hazard itself.
Ask Chalkline about this →Administrative controls are work-health-and-safety measures that reduce risk by changing how people work rather than changing the hazard itself. They sit second from the bottom of the hierarchy of controls, above only PPE, because they rely on people following a system rather than removing the danger.
Typical administrative controls on a building site:
- Safe work procedures and SWMS (the documented method for a high-risk task),
- Training, induction, and instruction (and supervision to confirm it is followed),
- Signage and exclusion zones (barricading an area, marking a no-go zone under a crane),
- Rosters and job rotation (limiting exposure time, for example rotating workers off a noisy or repetitive task),
- Scheduling (doing dusty or noisy work when fewer people are around, hot-work permits, exclusion times).
The reason they rank low is that they do not change the hazard, only the behaviour around it. A sign telling people to stand clear does nothing if someone walks under the load anyway, and a procedure only works while it is followed. So administrative controls are meant to be used after you have done what you reasonably can higher up the hierarchy (eliminate, substitute, isolate, engineering controls), not instead of it.
For a builder the practical points are to use administrative controls to support higher-order controls, not to replace a guardrail with a sign; to make them real (a procedure nobody is trained in, or signage nobody enforces, is a paper control that fails an inspection and an incident investigation); and to remember that under the WHS duty you must work down the hierarchy, so reaching for administration first is exactly what a regulator pulls you up on. Pair them with engineering controls wherever a physical fix is reasonably practicable.
Also known as: Admin controls, work-practice controls.
Category: WHS / Risk controls.
Related
See also
References
- Hierarchy of controls (Chalkline) (verified 2026-06-09)
Last updated: 2026-06-09. Verified: 2026-06-09. Quarterly review for currency.