Real Work, Real Talk podcast

Michael Plowright and I enjoyed completing our 4th episode of the “Real Work, Real Talk” podcast. My background is occupational health and safety (OHS); Michael’s is consulting on workplace bullying and some Human Resources issues. These two disciplines need to talk with each other if employers are going to effectively manage psychological safety in their workplaces. We thought we should get things started.

Below is one review we have received:

“Safe Work, Real Talk is a coherent, engaging four-part podcast series that explores psychosocial hazards, leadership, workplace conflict, and organisational responsibility through the combined perspectives of OHS and HR.
While some episodes would benefit from stronger evidence, more workplace examples, and more debate between the hosts, the series succeeds through its authenticity, practical relevance, and willingness to challenge accepted assumptions, earning an overall rating of 8.5/10″

Episodes can be accessed at:

Stream SafetyAtWorkBlog | Listen to podcast episodes online for free on SoundCloud

SafetyAtWorkBlog – Podcast – Apple Podcasts

Safe Work, Real Talk at Working Well Together

Kevin Jones

Useful Seminar but a Couple of Missed Opportunities

Wellbeing programs and resilience training can support employees, but they aren’t a substitute for addressing workplace risks at their source. That was a key message from WorkSafe Victoria’s webinar on psychological health and safety for small and medium businesses.

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Billable Hours, Suicide Risk and the Professional Class’s Blind Spot

The legal profession has spent decades asking why lawyers are burning out, becoming depressed and leaving practice. The newly released Mental Health and Wellbeing in Legal Workplaces: A Global Guide may have inadvertently provided the answer. As is becoming clear elsewhere, the “mental health crisis” is less a psychological problem than an organisational and systemic one, even in a profession with a strong institutional culture, high legislative awareness and a sense of sophistication.

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What “safety” can learn from “curry”

Asma Khan’s criticism of the word “curry” in a recent Instagram post offers an unexpected warning for occupational health and safety (OHS) people, and me in particular. A convenient collective term can make a complex subject easier to discuss, but it can also strip away its layers. In much the same way, “safety” is routinely asked to encompass machinery, chemicals, occupational disease, fatigue, bullying, violence, excessive workloads and other physical and psychological hazards.

The problem is not necessarily the word. The problem arises when the umbrella becomes the entire explanation.

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Safe Work Australia’s Big Bet on an Expanded OHS System

The release of Safe Work Australia’s Best Practice review left me wondering whether Australian work health and safety policy has reached regulatory overreach, or whether it is finally catching up with the realities of contemporary work.

Much of the discussion has focused on the report’s individual recommendations. What interests me more is an assumption that seems to underlie almost every recommendation: that occupational health and safety (OHS) should become the nation’s principal framework for preventing workplace harm in all its forms, not merely physical and psychological injury.

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Why don’t US employers focus on preventing psychosocial hazards?

Many Australian employers, managers and executives take inspiration from counterparts in the United States. When it comes to occupational mental health, they are looking in the wrong direction and could benefit from looking more locally. But there is merit in evaluating the US perspectives.

Below are responses provided by several Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents on my own PC to the question in this article’s title. There is considerable overlap in many, but I start off with the most confronting response, provided by the World Socialist Web Site‘s Socialism AI:

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