WorkSafe Victoria intends to change the farm safety culture

WorkSafe Victoria has launched a new campaign about health and safety on farms. Safety and health in this sector needs constant promotion as high rates of death and serious injury persist. The latest video campaign deserves a broad audience and hopefully is pushed heavily on television in rural areas and through local newspapers (what’s left …

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Hopkins challenges safety culture advocates to look at structure

One of the major influencers on occupational health and safety (OHS) management in Australian has been Andrew Hopkins. His influence comes from a combination of being outside the formal OHS profession and establishing a platform that is inclusive of information from a range of sources. In short he is a sociologist. Hopkins’ latest book has …

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Multidisciplinary analysis of safety culture

Managing occupational health and safety (OHS) is most successful when it considers a range of perspectives or disciplines in identifying practicable solutions.  Books are often successful in a similar multidisciplinary way but it is becoming rarer for books to contain a collection of perspectives.  A new book has been published on Safety Culture which matches …

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Safety Culture debates could be psychologically unsafe

  Professor Andrew Hopkins is one of Australia’s most prominent critics of how the term “Safety Culture” is used by the occupational health and safety (OHS) profession and businesses generally.  Last week, Dr Tristan Casey followed Hopkins’ presentation at a Brisbane safety conference and was put on the spot as his presentation was not really …

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Don’t let safety culture be an excuse for doing nothing

It is a common tactic for procrastinators to acknowledge a problem and then point to an ill-defined, fluffy concept as the problem because that fluffiness makes it almost impossible to change, some use the phrase “wicked problem” similarly.  The fluffy concept may be too difficult for most to understand, or the benefits will not be …

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Latest safety culture report on construction has lessons for all

In 2012, the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) government undertook a review of safety in its construction industry and produced a report called “Getting Home Safely“. In early 2017, the Government contracted RMIT University to review the construction sector’s work health and safety culture in the aftermath of the 2012 report and government actions since them.  …

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Safety Culture and/or safetyculture

SafetyAtWorkBlog and others have been critical of some of the products and practices of Australia safety company SafetyCulture. However Luke Anear, SafetyCulture’s CEO invited me to speak at a briefing for his staff and this seemed a good opportunity to better understand his company....

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