Before a Health and Safety Representative (HSR) is elected, the PCBU must determine which groups of workers (work groups) the HSR will represent.

Businesses can decide to have a single work group to cover all workers, or more than one group. Additional groups may be useful for larger businesses or organisations, or those with multiple locations or work activities.

If your business decides to have more than one work group, then you must ensure that workers are grouped in a way that enables them to:

• be represented effectively
• have access to an HSR.

The views of workers must be considered when deciding how to group them. Possible groupings include by:

• task
• risk
• location
• shift.

Temporary work groups may be effective for complex sites where workers from different businesses are together for a limited period of time.