Psychological safety at work is often referred to as a recent phenomenon or as an emerging risk. The hazard has captured people’s attention in Australia primarily because of a “mental health tsunami” that many relate to the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdowns and so forth. WorkSafe Victoria released guidance on workplace bullying and occupational violence in the …
A new Australian book has been structured around a “new work relations architecture“. Amazingly, a whole chapter is devoted to the role of occupational health and safety (OHS) in this new structure. This chapter is written by prominent law academic Ron McCallum AO, offers a good summary of OHS laws and identifies the challenges to …
The end-of-year reviews are starting to emerge from Australia’s law firms. The most recent release is from Maddocks, who have released several short reports on occupational health and safety (OHS) hazards and suggested controls for employers to apply. So this is a year-in-review for 2022, but it is also a forecast of what needs to …
Research analyses of the economics of modern work methods are important evidence for government policymaking, but occupational health and safety (OHS) costs are often omitted or overlooked. The recent report by The Australian Institute and its Centre for Future Work called “Working From Home, or Living at Work?” appears to be another example....
Last week’s article on the occupational health and safety (OHS) risks of Working From Home (WFH) reminded me of a report from late 2019 that I always meant to write about but forgot. In November 2019 the International Labour Organisation (ILO) released a report called Telework in the 21st century: An evolutionary perspective. It ‘s …
On September 12 2020, The Australian’s workplace relations journalist Ewin Hannan wrote about working from home (WFH), a reasonable topic as many Australians have been asked to do this, often at the request of the State Government, in order to reduce and control the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. The structure of the article centred …
Working From Home (WFH) has rarely been a hotter topic, even when it used to be called telework earlier this century. SafetyAtWorkBlog had the opportunity recently to ask some questions of experts put forward by the Australian Catholic University (ACU). The first of our articles based on the ACU response discusses one of the most …
