Victoria’s Minister for WorkSafe, Danny Pearson, has emerged from the occupational health and safety (OHS) wilderness to restate his commitment to introducing legislative amendments on psychosocial hazards at work. He has been stalling on these for a very long time, but he has recently provided an update to Parliament.
It is reasonable to claim that the quad bike safety controversy has been resolved in Australia through the intervention of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and the imposition of a national safety standard. However, the occupational health and safety (OHS) message continues to be murkier than necessary when quad bikes are advertised in some of the agricultural media without critical safety devices.
One supplier of synthetic stone products to Australia, Cosentino, is in the mainstream media after an appearance on a popular television home renovations show on the Nine Network, The Block. Several occupational health and safety (OHS) professionals and organisations have raised concerns about how the product was discussed and presented on a recent episode. The best coverage of this matter has been by an ABC television program, MediaWatch.
MediaWatch revealed the importance of listening to how dangerous products are described and how the guidance of OHS Regulators can be interpteed or manipulated.
RUOK? Day is held in September each year in Australia. The workplace suicide awareness campaign has been very successful, but over time, I have observed a decline in effectiveness, certainly at the local communication level. It may be a victim of its own success as almost all awareness campaigns struggle to maintain their original freshness. Perhaps it is time for a change. Perhaps that change is being forced upon us.
Burnout will continue to be a trend for discussion papers and marketing brochures for some time to come. A recent one, from Udemy Business is a good example of discussion without action. If we were to replace the word “burnout” with “stress”, the paper could easily have been produced over twenty years ago.
Many of the data sources will be familiar – Gartner, Gallup, McKinsey, Deloitte. The Gallup Research included these top five causes of burnout:
There have been dozens of attempts to promote occupational health and safety (OHS) through advertising. It is perhaps more difficult than ever due to the splintering of media types and the shifted control of media advertising to online global corporations. This new structure does not stop people from trying, and this is a good thing.
The upcoming 23rd World Congress on Safety and Health at Work includes the International Media Festival for Prevention 2023, an event that previously has unearthed significant OHS promotions like Shoelaces. But OHS regulators are persistent in their promotional work. A recent attempt was by Ontario’s Workplace Safety Insurance Board (WSIB), aimed at younger workers and to maximise social media influence.
Currently, many large Australian business groups are lobbying the federal government over its plans to introduce legislation to ensure that workers achieve the same pay rate for doing the same job as others. A feature of the full-page advertisement in the newspapers is that people should be able to receive more money or a higher rate of pay if they “work hard”. This phrase is never explained but may have implications for occupational health and safety (OHS).
