Fit for work: what it means, who decides, and what goes in the policy and the pre-shift declaration

Fit for work means a person is physically and mentally able to do their shift safely: not impaired by fatigue, alcohol or drugs, injury, illness, medication or acute stress. It is a shared obligation, the business’s and the worker’s. Here is where the duty comes from, what the policy and the pre-shift declaration contain, and what happens on a No.

The phrase gets used loosely, for a doctor’s clearance after an injury, a site’s drug and alcohol regime and the tick box at pre-start alike. No general WHS regulation in Australia defines the term; the mining regimes in Queensland and Western Australia come closest, and everywhere else the policy has to do the defining.

Where the duty comes from

Two duties meet at the gate. The business holds the first. Safe Work Australia puts it plainly for fatigue: a PCBU “is responsible for eliminating or minimising the risk from fatigue at work as much as reasonably can”, and must “consult, cooperate and coordinate with other businesses you work with where you both have duties to manage fatigue”, which covers labour hire and principal contractors on the same site. Behind that sits the primary duty, which in Safe Work Australia’s summary includes the “monitoring of workers health and conditions at the workplace”. A person who is not fit is a condition at the workplace, and a system that puts them in the excavator anyway is not a safe system of work.

The worker holds the second. On the same page, workers must “take reasonable care of their own health and safety (e.g. making sure they use the opportunities they have to sleep, so they are fit for work)”, and must “co-operate with reasonable WHS policies or procedures that they have been notified of (e.g. follow policies for working second jobs or tell their boss if they are fatigued)”. That clause is the declaration’s legal footing: a false Yes from a worker who knows the policy is not reasonable care.

The regulator’s list of fatigue controls says to “have a system for managers and workers to assess fitness for work before a shift”, to “have a process for workers to report fatigue”, and that “workers are more likely to accurately report fatigue if they know how you will respond and are confident they won’t be punished”. Its model Code of Practice on managing the risk of fatigue, published 19 September 2025, binds only where a state or territory adopts it.

Mining is where fitness for work has a name in legislation. Section 42 of Queensland’s Coal Mining Safety and Health Regulation 2017 requires a coal mine’s safety and health management system to control the risks of “personal fatigue”, “other physical or psychological impairment” (its own example is “an impairment caused by stress or illness”) and “the improper use of drugs”. The fatigue part must set maximum shift hours, rest breaks and a weekly or roster-cycle cap. The drugs part must include an obligation to notify the site senior executive of “current use of medication that could impair” the person’s ability to do their duties, and three assessments “to decide a person’s fitness for work”: voluntary self-testing, random testing, and testing on reasonable suspicion. Section 43 limits how the records are used and kept, and section 40 bars any work activity “if the person is under the influence of alcohol”.

Western Australia’s Work Health and Safety (Mines) Regulations 2022 carry a subdivision headed “Fitness for work”, with regulation 640 on fatigue and 641 on alcohol and drugs; see our guide to the WA mines regulations. For general industry, WorkSafe WA states the worker’s side: workers must “be fit and well enough to do their job”, “not be under the influence of alcohol or drugs” and “not use alcohol or illegal drugs while at work”, and that “includes medicines that are prescribed or over-the-counter”. Beyond this, requirements differ by state and industry; the local WHS regulator is the authority, and this is general information, not legal or safety advice.

The five things that make someone unfit

A fit for work policy that only covers fatigue is a fatigue policy with a bigger title. Five impairments sit under the heading, each with its own site-level control.

The fifth row is not a soft add-on: the Queensland regulation’s own example of impairment is “stress or illness”, and the roster-side half of it is in our guide to a psychosocial risk assessment. WorkSafe WA warns that “it should not be assumed that any observed impairment is caused by alcohol and/or other drug use”; fatigue, medical conditions, heat, noise and work stress look the same from across the yard. Testing is a site rule set by the employer or the principal; heavy vehicle and rail work carry statutory regimes of their own, and everywhere else the number on your page is yours.

What a fit for work policy contains

The policy turns “fit for work” from a phrase into a procedure. The shape below is standard; the parts most often missing are the last three.

Scope. Who it binds (employees, labour hire, subcontractors, visitors who enter the work area) and which sites, including a client’s stricter rule where one applies.

The standards. Sleep and hours thresholds lifted straight from your fatigue management plan, so the two documents cannot disagree. The alcohol and drug rule. The medication disclosure duty. The injury and illness rule, including who issues the return-to-work clearance before high-risk tasks resume.

The declaration at sign-on. That one is made before every shift, what it asks, and that a No stops the shift until a supervisor has looked at it.

What a supervisor does on a No. The stand-down (without penalty), the alternative duties available, the rule for sending someone home (with transport, never behind their own wheel if the reason was fatigue or alcohol), and the record made. WorkSafe WA’s script is worth borrowing: be “brief, firm and calm”, repeat the message (“I am instructing you to stop work for the day. Arrangements will be made for you to go home”), and “do not argue or debate”. A TARP gives it a structure crews already know, each level naming the role that acts.

Testing and privacy. Who may be tested, when, by whom, what happens to the result and who sees it. Queensland’s rule is a good model anywhere: fitness for work information is “used only for deciding the person’s fitness for work at the mine” and destroyed on a set timetable. A declaration is health information and needs handling as such.

Support. An employee assistance program, with the number on the crew card. Queensland’s section 42 requires one for fatigue and for drugs, and the reason travels: a policy that only knows how to stand people down produces people who hide things.

Review. A version number, an owner, a review date, and triggers: any fitness-related incident, a new client, a change in site rules or roster pattern.

The pre-shift fit for work declaration

The declaration is the policy in the worker’s hand at the start of the shift. It is short, because a long form at 5:40 am gets ticked rather than read.

• Hours since you last slept, and hours of sleep in the last 24 and 48. The numbers the fatigue plan’s thresholds are written against; fewer than 5 in 24 or 12 in 48 is a common trigger.
• Hours worked yesterday and in the last 7 days, only where the form cannot already see them.
• Alcohol in the last X hours, X set by the site rule, answered Yes or No. The form records; the breathalyser measures.
• Any medication that could affect alertness or coordination, with a plain note that Yes means a private word, not an automatic stand-down.
• Any injury or illness that affects today’s tasks, phrased around the tasks rather than the diagnosis.
• Anything else affecting your concentration today. The question that catches the 4 am phone call.
• Fit to drive, as its own line if the day includes driving. On a remote run this and the journey management plan are the same check, and the end-of-swing drive home (see FIFO, DIDO and BIBO) is the one it most needs to catch.
• The declaration itself. “I am fit to carry out my duties today”, a signature, the date and time.

Two things it is not. It is not a diagnosis: its value is as a record of what the worker said and what the supervisor did. And it is not a substitute for looking at the crew; Safe Work Australia’s system is “for managers and workers to assess fitness for work”, and the manager’s half is observation at pre-start, every day. A lone worker’s form carries one extra line, the day’s check-in schedule, and the lone worker check-in procedure covers that end.

When the answer is No

Everything above exists to produce an honest No now and then. Whether it does depends on what a No costs the person who writes it.

A room for the night, a swag, a later start, a day on the ground instead of in the cab, a lift home: each costs less than the incident it prevents. A crew that learns a No means a quiet word, a seat in the ute and no mark against their name will write one when they need to. A crew that learns a No means docked hours, a reputation or a “harden up” at pre-start will tick Yes forever, and the policy will have a perfect record right up to the morning it does not.

The supervisor’s conversation is the second half. Confirm the No, choose between modified duties and a stand-down against the policy’s thresholds, arrange transport if the person is going home, record what was declared and what was done, and tell the planner so the gap is filled from the roster rather than by the next tired person. Where the No is a fatigue No, the hours behind it are on record, and the maximum consecutive hours guide is where to check whether the roster, not the person, produced it.

A No is also data. Three from the same crew in a fortnight is a roster problem; three from the same camp wing is an accommodation problem.

Where paper breaks

The paper declaration works on the morning it is signed. The failures are structural and arrive later.

The 5:40 am signature. Completed by the person who wants to work, before coffee, with the ute running. “Hours of sleep: 7” is an estimate by the person with the strongest interest in it being 7.

Hours from memory. “Hours worked in the last 7 days” is a question the timesheet can answer and the worker cannot, so the form gets a round number and the threshold is checked against fiction. Last night’s finish is on a timesheet in another system, and the form on the bonnet is the only record in the conversation.

The folder. Declarations live in a ring binder, which satisfies the audit until someone asks for every declaration from one worker across three sites. The medical behind the high-risk licence expired in August, and the site induction that explained the fit for work rule sits unsigned in the same binder.

Running fit for work in Humanz

Humanz handles the record-keeping and the hours arithmetic. Three pieces do the work.

The fatigue rules know the hours already worked, because the timesheet and the roster are one system. A rule set per client and per site checks a worker’s hours at the moment of booking and alerts before a limit trips, so a shift that would start at the end of a 13-hour day is flagged when it is planned rather than discovered at pre-start. The same fatigue management software holds your baseline limits and each client’s stricter overlay; the free fatigue hours checker lets you test the limits first.

The declaration is a custom form. Your admin builds it once: mandatory questions, drop-downs for the Yes and No answers, a conditional section that opens only on a Yes to medication or injury, and signature capture. The worker completes it on their phone, offline if the site has no coverage, and the submission is timestamped and versioned against the worker and the job. Made mandatory before the shift, the Yes exists on record before the work starts, and every declaration a worker has made sits on their profile rather than in a binder.

Tickets, licences, inductions and medicals sit on the same profile with expiry alerts and booking blocks, so the expired medical stops the booking rather than turning up in the investigation. Rosters carry employees, labour hire and subcontractors together, so the policy’s scope clause and the roster are the same list of people.

Humanz does not perform medical assessments, drug or alcohol testing, or any fitness for work assessment of its own. It does not use AI to judge whether a person is fit, does not track a worker’s location, does not calculate pay or interpret awards, and does not give safety or legal advice. What it adds is the declaration on record before the shift, hours that came from the timesheet rather than memory, and the expiry that blocked the booking. If your declarations live in a folder and your supervisors cannot see yesterday’s hours, book a walkthrough and bring the folder.

Frequently asked questions

What does fit for work mean?

Fit for work means a person is physically and mentally able to carry out their work safely, without impairment from fatigue, alcohol or drugs, injury, illness, medication or acute stress. In Australia the general WHS laws do not define the term; it is built from the business’s duty to provide safe systems of work and the worker’s duty to take reasonable care, and a workplace fit for work policy sets the actual standards. The Queensland and Western Australian mining regulations are the main places the phrase appears in legislation.

Who is responsible for fit for work?

Both the business and the worker. The business must eliminate or minimise the risk from fatigue and from alcohol and drug use so far as is reasonably practicable, including having a system to assess fitness for work before a shift. The worker must take reasonable care for their own safety, which Safe Work Australia describes as using the opportunities they have to sleep so they are fit for work, and must cooperate with reasonable policies, including telling their supervisor when they are not fit.

What should a fit for work policy include?

A fit for work policy should set out its scope, the standards (sleep and hours thresholds, the alcohol and drug rule, medication disclosure, injury and return-to-work clearance), the pre-shift declaration, what a supervisor does when a worker is not fit, the testing and privacy rules, the support available such as an employee assistance program, and a review cycle. The standards should be taken from the business’s fatigue management plan so the two documents agree. The most commonly missing parts are the supervisor’s response, the privacy rules and the review date.

What is a fit for work declaration?

A fit for work declaration is a short statement a worker completes before a shift confirming they are fit to carry out their duties, usually with questions on sleep in the last 24 and 48 hours, alcohol within the site’s cut-off, medication that could affect alertness, injury or illness, anything else affecting concentration, and fitness to drive if the day includes driving. It is a record of what the worker declared and what the supervisor did, not a medical assessment, and it is backed up by the supervisor’s observation at pre-start.

What happens if a worker is not fit for work?

The worker is stood down from safety-critical tasks for that shift, without penalty, and either given alternative duties that suit their state or sent home with transport arranged if the reason was fatigue or alcohol. The supervisor records what was declared and what was done, and the gap is filled from the roster. Businesses that punish an honest No teach crews to declare fit when they are not, which is the opposite of the policy’s purpose.

Is a fit for work check a legal requirement in Australia?

Not by that name under the general WHS laws, which require businesses to manage the risks of fatigue and of alcohol and drug use so far as is reasonably practicable without prescribing a specific check. Safe Work Australia’s fatigue guidance lists a system to assess fitness for work before a shift among the expected controls. In Queensland coal mining, the safety and health management system must include fitness provisions covering fatigue, other impairment and drugs, and Western Australia’s mines regulations carry fitness for work provisions on fatigue and on alcohol and drugs. Heavy vehicle and rail work have their own statutory regimes.