Nothing is ever easy in farming. Several Australian States have introduced a rebate scheme to help farmers improve the safety of the quad bikes so the vehicles, also inaccurately called All Terrain Vehicles (ATV), should be made safer. The argument over safety has persisted for many years and has resulted, most recently, in rebates for safety improvements provided by the government. However, two States – Victoria and New South Wales – have different processes to accessing these rebates and the NSW process seems to deter farmers from applying for the rebates.

caution ATV sign The Victorian Government’s rebate scheme is administered through WorkSafe who provides a Frequently Asked Questions which is simple and clear. The dates of activity are listed and, primarily, proof of purchase is the main document for eligibility. Victorian farmers can obtain a rebate for:

“$1200 for the purchase of an alternate vehicle such as a side-by-side vehicle (SSV) or a small utility vehicle (SUV). The alternate vehicle must be designed for use in agriculture and at point of sale have rollover protection and a fitted seatbelt. Sport vehicles and small commercial vehicles, such as utes, are excluded.

Up to $600 for the purchase of up to two operator protection devices (OPD). The OPD must have been designed and manufactured in accordance with approved engineering standards and independently tested to be eligible for the rebate. There are currently two OPD devices that meet this criteria and are eligible for the rebate. They are the Quadbar™ and the ATV Lifeguard.”

The NSW process is funded by SafeWork NSW with a complex set of terms and conditions. The purchase options seem narrower but the major difference in the two rebates schemes is New South Wales’ insistence that farmers must attend an “educative interaction”. According to a SafeWork NSW FAQ farmers are required to:

“get along to a Farm Safety Day run by SafeWork NSW or one of its program partners

visit the SafeWork NSW stand at an Agricultural Field Days

request a free on-farm Workplace Advisory Visit and we will come to you

attend one of the 100 training events being offered by Tocal College.”

SafetyAtWorkBlog has been told that farmers find this to be condescending and are suspicious of SafeWork NSW’s intentions, particularly in relation to the “free on-farm Workplace Advisory Visit”. Such visits are likely to be SafeWork NSW’s preferred option as there are only a limited number of Field Days available every year. WorkSafe Victoria does not insist on educative interactions as part of the rebate scheme which increases NSW framers’ suspicions.

The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) recently a new video to support its claims that Operator Protection Devices (OPD) or Crush Protection Devices (CPD) “are not the answer“. The FCAI has been out of step with the issue of quad bike safety for many years and it is difficult to sympathise with its position when governments are “endorsing” OPDs through rebate schemes.

The FCAI’s position seems to be shortsighted as the rebates are encouraging farmers to apply a Gordian Knot solution to the bickering over quad bike safety. Both the NSW and Victorian rebate schemes encourage farmers to purchase side-by-side vehicles (SSV) which, due to the framework over the driver, have no need for the OPDs on offer. SSVs are more expensive than quadbikes but can be seen as endorsed safer options by the regulators of safety in each of the States.

Having dug in to a contrary position of additional safety measures on quad bikes, the FCAI is getting more out of step with the regulators’ positions and the safe desires of farmers and farming families. But perhaps criticising the FCAI is unfair, after all, it is a body representing the interests of automotive manufacturers. Generations have grown up equating motor vehicle manufacturing with safety, ever since “Unsafe at Any Speed” was published in the 1960s, but the FCAI seems different. It has its own definition of workplace safety that is not in step with government or safety regulators.

Farmers, like all business operators, need to decide for themselves who they trust more for their own safety – regulators or salespeople.

Kevin Jones

Categories: agriculture, ATV, design, Duty of Care, enforcement, government, OHS, quad bike, research, safety, SafeWork, small business, state of knowledge, transport, WorkSafe

Tagged: farm safety, OHS, quadbikes

Knowledge remains power, even in the age of robots

Kevin Jones

Posted on September 26, 2016

A recent safety convention in Australia had as its theme “Disruption”, a fashionable term that can mean many things to many people. Perhaps why it is a marketer’s dream word. The initial session of the convention was unnerving because speakers were saying that the current jobs and activities of safety professionals will be undertaken by artificial intelligence in a decade. This change is not a coordinated strategy but bits and pieces of this change/threat keep appearing, the latest was in The Guardian on 25 September 2016 in an article called “You’d better listen up“.

That article, ostensibly about headphones included this workplace application:

“Bragi has recently announced a partnership with IBM where it hopes to deliver the massive processing power and cognitive capacity of the Watson AI system via its devices. At the moment, it is exploring how these capabilities could be employed in the workplace. For example, maintenance workers could describe an issue, Watson recognises the problem and talks them through the solution – without their having to refer to manuals or computers, keeping their hands free for the repair. Similarly, doctors could get help with recognising rare conditions and their conversation with a patient would be recorded and saved to the cloud for their records.”

Futuristic Engineer in yellow hardhat holding tablet

The safety benefits of this contraption is obvious – a manual on call and responsive to vocalised questions. As anyone with a Glaswegian accent trying to set up voicemail in Australia will know, vocal recognition still has a long way to go unless the world is able to be un-Babelled and speak with one accent. (Please not Australian, as artificial intelligences (AI) would struggle with the constant answering of “Yeah – Nah”) Voice recognition software has needed long hours of training to be functioning at a basic level.

Thankfully that tech challenge can be left to the technologists. What is more important, and could provide safety professionals with a future, is the back-end of the application of Watson. Any AI needs knowledge so that the advice it provides to the user/listener/engager is accurate and relevant to the situation, literally, at hand. AIs will not create their own knowledge, at least in the short term, and so will rely on safety professionals and others to provide the knowledge to the software.

Safety professionals are unlikely to provide knowledge of a specific process but will likely be called on to add value to the mechanical work activity or discussion. Occupational health and safety (OHS) is likely to be one of the assessment criteria used by the AI. For instance, in the response to the work activity quoted above the maintenance worker will want to know how to do something. The OHS contribution to the AI’s response would be to ensure that the task is undertaken safely, in a safe environment or with the suitable protective equipment or the correct tool.

The convention was shown video of an AI that verified that workers were dressed appropriately for the work conditions before allowing access to site. This would replace those OHS consultants who like to be safety police but the situation described in the video was understandable. There are rules for specific PPE prior to entering a workplace with hazards that could be reduced by wearing the PPE. No PPE, no site access. The argument in favour of AI applications would be that the safety professional could attend to more important activities. The sad reality is that some safety professionals rely on this type of activity to give their jobs worth.

The reality of AI in OHS cannot be avoided. Those who advocate for disruption argue that disruption provides opportunities for the creative, the agile and the clear thinkers but it is also the case that many safety professionals will be left behind like Neanderthals to Hom (OHS) Sapiens.

Kevin Jones

Categories: conference, design, education, hazards, innovation, OHS, PPE, risk, safety, technology

Tagged: Artifical Intelligence, health and safety, OHS

Taking Total Cost of Injury seriously could substantially change how safety is managed

Kevin Jones

Posted on September 20, 2016

Cost is the last consideration in occupational health and safety (OHS) but is usually the first consideration in all other decisions. “Can we afford to improve something? No. So let’s do something else”. There is something fundamentally skewed in determining the cost-benefit analysis when it comes to workplace safety.

For several years Safe Work Australia (SWA) has been calculating the Cost of Work-related Injury and Illness for Australian Employers, Workers and the Community. These reports gain very little media attention as most business reporters and commentators prefer data provided by more regular data sources like the Productivity Commission or, heaven forbid, some of the large accounting firms. (See here for how authoritative PricewaterhouseCoopers was on OHS costs) Yet they are authoritative, as much as anyone can be with the dearth of accurate safety data in Australia.

In SWA’s most recent report it stated that

“Safe Work Australia has re-estimated the total economic cost of work related injury to the Australian economy for the 2012-13 reference year. The total economic cost for the 2012–13 financial year is estimated to be $61.8 billion, representing 4.1 per cent of GDP for the same period.” (page 4)

This type of data, from the Executive Summary, will likely get a mention in the press with business groups making statements that point to the enormous economic burden they have to cope with. Trade Unions will likely point to the economic cost to the Australian workers from employer mismanagement. These opposing positions are typical of the restrictions on debates related to OHS that come from continuing with an archaic tripartite consultative mechanism for formulating government policy.

What these debates and reportage miss is that SWA has provided a template for determining the economic AND social cost of poor safety management. In this world of increasing due diligence and corporate social responsibility, it is remarkable that the SWA evaluations have not gained the attention they deserve.

Below is a list of the criteria that SWA has applied in identifying the Total Cost of Injury and Illness:

1. “Identify the major categories of economic costs borne by economic agents (employers, workers and the community)
2. Determine the best source of measurement for each cost item
3. Define the levels of severity of injury or disease to differentiate between incidents with different cost structures
4. Identify which cost items apply to each severity category
5. Determine the number of incidents which fall into each severity category, and the average duration of time lost for a typical incident in each category
6. Calculate the average cost of a typical incident in each severity category by aggregating the typical costs associated with each cost item, and
7. Calculate the total cost of all work-related incidents by combining the typical cost of an incident with an estimate of the number of such incidents and aggregating over all classes of incidents.” (page 12)

Safe Work Australia is a little narrow with its assessment of community and worker impacts. The table pictured below is a table from page 15 of the latest SWA report. It addresses funeral costs, travel costs, rehabilitation aids and others but does not consider the costs associated with the disruption that a workplace fatality can bring to the family. Depending on the size of the family and the role that the deceased worker played at home, the disruption could be huge. For instance, the death of a farmer in a remote rural part of the country could end that business.

This Ripple Effect has recently been getting attention in relation to suicides but has yet to be addressed in workplace fatalities. Given the increased attention to the impacts of workplace mental health on family and work colleagues, the research into ripples is likely to occur soon and will substantially expand the cost estimates of workplace deaths, injuries and illnesses. This should reset the cost-benefit analyses of businesses, particularly those that accept the social context of their work.

Some States and companies have introduced OHS calculators that are, usually, intended to add some strength to OHS arguments for change but few include the SWA criteria and some are very thin. For instance this cost calculator has few criteria and fails to include any explanation of its indirect cost calculation other than naming it source. The WorkSafe Queensland calculator may be paper-based but could provide a much more accurate estimation of costs. It fails to include social cost calculation but that was not the point of this calculator.

An investigation into the measurement of injury costs was undertaken in New Zealand in 2010. On the matter of cost-benefit analysis (CBA), the report said:

“CBA has a place in assisting with making injury prevention resource allocation decisions. However, the evidence needed to inform such analyses is missing for many injury prevention interventions. Where such evidence is lacking, the use of policy principles, such as equity, effectiveness and value for money, may assist with decision making.” (page 42)

In determining a reasonably practicable safety measure, WorkSafe Victoria applies a hierarchical decision making with cost being the last consideration. In its position paper, WorkSafe Victoria says:

“There must be a clear presumption in favour of safety. Once the likelihood and degree of harm from a hazard or risk is understood, and the availability and suitability of a relevant safety measure to eliminate or reduce the hazard or risk is established, that safety measure should be implemented unless the cost of doing so is so disproportionate to the benefit (in terms of reducing the severity of the hazard or risk) that it would be clearly unreasonable to justify the expenditure.” (page 4)

Regardless of the emphasis placed in the first paragraph of this article, perhaps it is not the cost calculation that is fundamentally wrong. Perhaps it is the value of what we have and what do and how we treat others under our care that we have forgotten or devalued. Although the total cost of injury and illness has been calculated for some time, it has been a half-hearted process, partly because the level of information required is not available and there is little motivation to improve this situation. But also partly because the total cost may show how little value is placed on the community and the workers who provide posterity.

The role of cost-benefit analysis in occupational health and safety deserves a fresh discussion as everyone has a different understanding of the concept, everyone differs on cost and everyone differs on benefit. But behind these differences are decisions that affect the lives of others as well as the profitability of our companies. In many ways the value of those lives is being forgotten and yet we have a moral and legislative obligation to remember, and act.

Kevin Jones

Categories: accountability, corporate social responsibility, diligence, due diligence, economics, government, OHS, productivity, safety, transparency, WorkSafe

Wellness programs need to fit business management

Kevin Jones

Posted on September 19, 2016

Recently Corporate Bodies International circulated an annual membership offer (no costs listed in this link) to its Australian market. It said:

“Employees and their families have access over to over 300 live webinars and exercise classes, monthly health videos, posters, online GP, Dietitian and Exercise Physiologist appointments – from anywhere in the world, just to name a few of the inclusions. All of this for little more than the cost of a cup of coffee.”

It is the last line that requires a bit more consideration as no program only costs just what marketers claim.

Business cartoon about lowering insurance costs by having fit, exercising employees.

The CBI offer included a link to a flyer about its Healthy Bodies Subscription which involves $A1,800 per annum for companies with less than 100 staff to about ten times that for a much larger number of staff. The services extend from webinars, posters for toilet walls and newsletters to “GP2U Online GP Access” which involves:

“Diagnosis, immediate prescriptions, specialist referrals and medical certificates, all from the convenience of the office. Designed for critical workers or the executive team, minimising work disruption”.

For an organisation that has no occupational health and safety (OHS), Human Resources or well-being resources, purchasing a package like this may be financially attractive but it can also lock one into a pool of medical advisors that could generate conflicts later on with, for instance, insurers, legal representatives, project partners and others. The provision of “immediate prescriptions” may also be a benefit that needs some further investigation – prescriptions by who? For any medication?

A company needs to decide whether it wants to be in total control of the medical services it may offer, or may need to offer, to its employees and whether subscriptions are sufficiently responsive to meet the fluctuations that occur with any workforce and with the business’ profitability.

It is also worth considering whether employees can choose to opt-out and continue being diagnosed or treated by their own physician. How would such a corporate subscription allow for this worker right? If the worker opts out, would this be seen as being disloyal? Would this reduce the number of workers covered by the subscription and affect the overall cost to the company?

Owning the welfare program for one’s own employees allows a company to shop for the best deal and to tailor the program to match the fluctuations of the company’s needs. Would this cost more than the subscription fees in the table above? Almost certainly, IF the subscription cost was the only cost involved. It is important to look beyond cost to operating costs like management control, good governance and due diligence – to the broader context to which occupational health and safety law is pushing Australian companies. These factors are rarely costed and are frequently overlooked, probably as a consequence of not being measured. It is a shame that such “intangibles” are accepted as part of economic assessments but are dismissed in relation to OHS.

Kevin Jones

Categories: business, due diligence, Duty of Care, evidence, health, OHS, productivity, risk, safety, small business, wellness, workplace

Tagged: business management, OHS, wellness

The OHS challenges presented by penises, testicles and hotel sex

Kevin Jones

Posted on September 12, 2016

Every profession and occupation has its weird stories, the “you wouldn’t believe it” stories. Occupational health and safety (OHS) is no different. There are stories of a degloved penis, complications from piercings in private places or chemical burns on private parts that reinforce the important of washing hands thoroughly after touching chemicals. Such stories can be funny, to those not associated with the incidents, but they also show some of the most difficult challenges to manage.

One true story that was written up in a medical journal in the early 1990s would be a fascinating case study in organisational culture, safety management, harm prevention and workers compensation if it happened today – the incident of scrotal self-repair.

Snopes.com is the best source of straight reporting on this incident that involved:

“An unmarried loner, he usually didn’t leave the machine shop at lunchtime with his co-workers. Finding himself alone, he had begun the regular practice of masturbating by holding his penis against the canvas drive-belt of a large floor-based piece of running machinery. One day, as he approached orgasm, he lost his concentration and leaned too close to the belt. When his scrotum suddenly became caught between the pulley-wheel and the drive-belt, he was thrown into the air and landed a few feet away. Unaware that he had lost his left testis, and perhaps too stunned to feel much pain, he stapled the wound closed and resumed work.”

The full article is well worth reading to understand the background and consequences of this incident. There are several OHS issues that are worth considering.

The man is described as a “loner”. Many workplace have workers with such personalities and managers should continue to try their best to integrate such people into the workforce. It can be an enormous challenge and making the worker in the case above less of a loner at worker may not have prevented the incident but inclusion is a major element of establishing a working and developing organisational culture.

There is also the issue of machine guarding that sounds likely to have removed the hazard of the pinch point. The incident descriptions indicate that the pulley-wheel was not guarded. Even though the manufacturers probably did not anticipate masturbation in their operating manual, pinch points on conveyor belts have been a known hazard for decades.

Taking up a point from the previous paragraph, many readers would say that the worker was doing the wrong thing with the wrong piece of machinery in the wrong place and they are right. It is implied from the Snopes articles that this was a common practice for this man and that it was not the masturbation with the drive-belt that caused this incident, it was the worker’s inattention and contact with the pulley-wheel. Guarding would likely have prevented this incident just as it would have prevented entanglement of a loose sleeve. We don’t know the type of machine, the make or have a copy of the manufacturers’ guidelines but machine guarding is highly regulated and pinch point incidents are far less frequent than in the past.

Many companies have policies and processes that rely on “just culture” and trust and respect. How would those values be applied in the case of a traumatic masturbation-related injury? How would the company process any action in such a circumstance that alsi maintains the worker’s dignity? Is it possible to maintain a dignity when the injury may become the talk of the company?

A more recent case in Australia illustrates the magnitude of the challenge in relation to sex-related injuries. In 2007 a public servant who was required to stay overnight in a hotel room had sex with a male friend and was injured when a light fitting fell. Her claim for workers compensation when to Australia’s High Court in 2013 where the decision to deny her workers’ compensation was upheld. The ABC reported that the Employment Minister Eric Abetz referred to the Court’s decision as a “victory for common sense”. Maybe but the to-ing and fro-ing through the court system indicates that there was an argument to be made.

That case became commonly used as an example of how workers compensation and, by association, OHS had become silly, and how entitlements can be abused.

Whether the issue is a penile piercing being caught on a pallet or a light shade falling on your face during sex, these are injuries that have occurred during work activities and that need addressing, usually, by safety advisers and managers, and most will be able to do this competently. However such injuries can seriously test a company’s safety management system and, perhaps more significantly, the culture of that company. Who of us can guarantee that an injured worker will receive the respect that they deserve, regardless of the cause of the injury?

Kevin Jones

Categories: Abetz, business, culture, Duty of Care, ethics, evidence, hazards, law, OHS, risk, safety, safety culture, sex, workers compensation, workplace

Tagged: culture, genitals, OHS, respect

SafetyAtWorkBlog

Award-winning news, commentary and opinion on workplace safety and health

Does accessing government assistance need to be so hard?

Kevin Jones

Posted on September 27, 2016

Knowledge remains power, even in the age of robots

Kevin Jones

Posted on September 26, 2016

Wellness programs need to fit business management

Kevin Jones

Posted on September 19, 2016

The OHS challenges presented by penises, testicles and hotel sex

Kevin Jones

Posted on September 12, 2016

Posted on September 27, 2016

Share this:

Posted on September 26, 2016

Share this:

Posted on September 20, 2016

Share this:

Posted on September 19, 2016

Share this:

Posted on September 12, 2016

Share this: