Infographics have become a popular format for distributing information about occupational health and safety (OHS) and other topics but they are often seen as a shortcut in consultation. They can be visually engaging but are often too shallow as the writers and designers try to depict safety data in the simplest manner. Terminology also needs to be consistent so that readability is most effective.
Recently Safe Work Australia produced
Below is a quick video update of issues raised in the SafetyAtWorkBlog over the last week or so.
These updates and other media files will be transferred to the SafetyAtWorkBlog YouTube channel over the next few weeks so you may want to follow that channel. You can do this by clicking on the watermark in the video below.
In 2016, a survey of General Practitioners (GPs) conducted by Monash University identified that GPs frequently struggled with patients involved with workers compensation and that mental illnesses were particularly problematic.
In January 2018 Monash University, with the support of major institutions and safety
Australia’s Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Kate Jenkins, has been prominent in recent seminars about sexual harassment, particularly in the entertainment industry. In February 2018, Jenkins spoke at a seminar in Melbourne hosted by Screen Producers Australia and provided strong advice on how businesses can control sexual harassment.
Jenkins began her presentation with an uncomfortable reminder that business has been lax in addressing unlawful workplace behaviour.
In 2008 the brothers Brafman wrote “Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior“. They tell the story of Ori Brafman being told, on his first day in his MBA course in Tel Aviv in the 1980s, that
“People aren”t rational.”
In my 1990s tertiary course into OHS Risk Management, we were still being referred to the 1965 book, “The Rational Manager“. Occupational health and safety (OHS) seems to still be based on an assumption of rationality in OHS management systems, decision-making and working yet it does not take too much exposure to the reality of work to understand that we must anticipate irrationality.
The Weekly Times newspaper has included an 8-page wraparound to its 7 February 2018 edition about workplace safety. The supplement is timely, the contents are indicative of cultural and political changes and the supplement is a nice summary of the multiple hazards and management approaches needed in agriculture (the same as in most industries, really).
Data quoted liberally from
The latest statistics of farm injuries from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare provide a useful insight in to the workplace risks of Australian farms. Given the workplace focus of the SafetyAtWorkBlog, and the articles written about the risk of working with quad bikes, the following statistics are of great interest:
“For quad bikes, almost 90% of injuries were sustained by the driver in people aged 15 and over.” (page 9)
“For injuries involving quad bikes, males accounted for two-thirds (66%) of all hospitalisations for children aged 0–14 and almost 80% of all hospitalisations for people aged 15 and over.” (page 9)