Waffle Pod Slab Construction SWMS

Suits concreters, slab contractors and builders constructing waffle pod raft slabs for houses. It covers unloading materials, edge preparation, laying membrane and pods, walking on pods, reinforcement, the pre-pour inspection, the pour and finishing, and clean-up.

Powered mobile plant moves in the work area on every pour, so that item is pre-ticked. A ground-level raft slab seldom has a fall of more than 2 metres; tick the falls item if the slab or its edges involve one, and tick the trench item if any excavation is deeper than 1.5 metres.

New to SWMS? Read What Is A Safe Work Method Statement?

What Is Covered In Our Waffle Pod Slab Construction SWMS?

After the standard pre-start checks, the job steps run from “Receive and unload pods, reinforcement and materials” to “Cure, strip edges, clean up and remove waste”. The hazards and controls include:

• Delivery trucks and unloading loads
• Pods and membrane blown away by wind
• Falling through or slipping on pods
• Impalement on exposed reinforcement
• Falls into edge trenches
• Trench wall collapse
• Concrete trucks, pump hose and boom movement
• Overhead power lines near the pump boom
• Wet concrete and cement burns
• Edge form failure during the pour
• Hand-arm vibration and noise from finishing
• Fire in polystyrene offcuts

High Risk Construction Work

These high risk construction work items (WHS Regulation 2011 (Qld) s 291) are already ticked because they are part of this work. Tick any others that apply to your job:

• Is carried out in an area at a workplace in which there is any movement of powered mobile plant

Licences, Training and Competency

• General construction induction training card (white card) for every worker, and the site induction
• Slab designer’s or engineer’s drawings and pod layout for the job, read by the supervisor before work starts
• Dogging high risk work licence for any worker who slings loads or directs a crane operator when the load is out of the operator’s view
• High risk work licence for the vehicle loading crane (10 metre tonnes or more) or mobile crane class that matches the unloading crane used by the delivery truck
• High risk work licence for the forklift truck class for any forklift operator unloading pods and reinforcement
• High risk work licence for the concrete placing boom class for the operator of an articulating pump boom with power-operated slewing and luffing
• Concreters and steel fixers trained in manual tasks and in the use of the plant they operate

Legislation and Codes of Practice Referenced

• Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Qld)
• Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011 (Qld)
• How to Manage Work Health and Safety Risks Code of Practice 2021
• Managing the Risk of Falls at Workplaces Code of Practice 2021
• Concrete Pumping Code of Practice 2019
• Formwork Code of Practice 2016
• Hazardous Manual Tasks Code of Practice 2021
• Managing Risks of Plant in the Workplace Code of Practice 2021
• Managing Risks of Hazardous Chemicals in the Workplace Code of Practice 2021
• Managing Noise and Preventing Hearing Loss at Work Code of Practice 2021
• Excavation Work Code of Practice 2021
• Mobile Crane Code of Practice 2024
• Electrical Safety Regulation 2026 (Qld): overhead power line exclusion zones

What You Get

• An editable Microsoft Word document (13 A4 landscape pages). Type your business, client and job details once and they fill in on every page, with a space for your logo
• 9 job steps for this work, each with its hazards, controls, initial and residual risk scores and the person responsible
• PPE listed for this job: safety boots (steel or composite midsole against protruding steel); high-visibility clothing; gloves for handling reinforcement and wet concrete
• Emergency arrangements for: impalement or fall onto reinforcement and concrete or cement in the eyes
• Plus the parts every Work Safety QLD SWMS shares, from the s 291 checklist to the worker sign-on sheet (see the layout in our free SWMS template)

Adjust it for your site, plant and crew, and talk it through with your workers before work starts. Please make sure you read our Disclaimer before downloading this SWMS.

Checked against the Queensland laws and codes of practice listed above. Last reviewed November 2026.