Victorian businesses and occupational health and safety (OHS) people are hungry for advice about managing psychosocial hazards at work if the scenes at today’s Work Health and Safety show were any indication. The sad part of the popularity of the topic is that some of the advice being given is wrong or outdated.
Early this century, according to a draft conference paper* in the SafetyAtWorkBlog archives, the late Eric Wigglesworth OAM posed the following question: “In addition to our basic human rights of freedom of speech and freedom of religion, should there also be freedom from injury as a basic human right?” The expectation of a safe and healthy work … Continue reading “Is safe work a basic, or fundamental, human right?”
“IMPROVED SAFETY FOR URANIUM WORKERS” is the headline of a media release from Australia’s Minister for Resources and Energy, Martin Ferguson. The 9 June 2011 statement concerns the positive initiative of new health monitoring for those workers in the uranium mining and milling industries, but it also betrays a perspective that is dominant in the thinking … Continue reading “Wrong safety messages from Australia’s resources minister”
The increased interest in preventing and managing psychosocial hazards at work should draw more attention to a service that many employers rely on to handle this issue: Employee Assistance Providers (EAPs). Recently, The Age newspaper ran an article called “Employers spruik workplace wellbeing services. But who is picking up the phone?” (paywalled). The hard copy …
There is a cost-of-living crisis in large parts of the world, there is a climate emergency, there are wars and political instability and insecurity everywhere. Why is occupational health and safety (OHS) still considered important? Well, it isn’t really when compared to these global and existential crises, but that is the microcosm in which we …
Many conference delegates spoke highly of international speaker I David Daniels at the recent Psych Health and Safety conference. Daniels has a long occupational health and safety (OHS) career and hosts the United States version of the Psych Health and Safety podcast. His OHS perspectives, including his discussions about race, were significant....
Many people are promoting various tools, usually apps, for identifying and managing psychosocial hazards at work. Some experts in the field of organisational psychology are cool on these tools, others are dismissive of poorly designed tools promoted by rent-seekers, others promote free tools, and some say that all the information required is already available if …
