business – Page 187 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

Rotting fish, safety leadership and wizards

In business, government and public authorities, CEOs and executives regularly resign during periods of controversy. Within the 24 hours of each other in 2010 two prominent Australian executives resigned – Brian Waldron and Russell Rees. Waldron because the rugby league team, Melbourne Storm, his previous CEO appointment, was found to have operated unethically during his time at the top. Rees resigned because, he said it is the right time to leave, however there had been serious questions put in a Royal Commission about his handling of the events in Black Saturday bushfires when over 170 people died.

The dominant mantra in occupational safety management is that safety cannot be improved without leadership from the executives. Australian safety conferences are laden with mentions of leadership. Leaders have the potential to inspire, although some stay on for too long.

The leadership sellers in the corporate marketplace (some not dissimilar to wizards) are all pushing the positive benefits of leadership. But there are good leaders and bad leaders. There are inspirational leaders and there are selfish leaders. There are those executives who lead in positive directions and there are those who lead organisations and others astray. There are some people who are not suited to being leaders at all. Continue reading “Rotting fish, safety leadership and wizards”

The How, How likely and How much of workplace safety

I return to the observation Ken made in his article, the obs about the most successful safety places where

“…safety is driven at the shop floor level and led by a committed team of senior executives who can be relied upon to show it by their actions and not just words.”

Of course, at first blush this is about ownership, commitment etc. But I get the impression that it’s something even more fundamental and that’s about pragmatism.

I’m not sure OHS-World is so good at How, How likely and How much: the things that I’d suggest cut-to-the-chase on defining pragmatism.

In contrast, we seem to get all caught up in What and Why as if that is enough to motivate good safety performance. What manifests itself as interminable reports of all the horrible safety failures and the injuries that accompany them. For mine, the only What in this context is a What that matters to the punter. Did something go wrong in a way and situation that is completely relevant to the punter, so it can be used to look for similar potential at the punter’s place? The Why I’m referring to is why a punter should fix stuff, specifically in the context of fixing stuff ’cause it’s the right thing to do or ’cause ya can get busted. Continue reading “The How, How likely and How much of workplace safety”

Understanding people is understanding safety

SafetyAtWorkBlog reader Ken Malcolm submitted this comment in response to Yossi Berger’s article of 21 March 2011 but I think it warrants a post of its own:

It is often said two safety professionals never agree however I do agree SA law has been ineffective. However let me explain why I think this way.

I am in Victoria, in the business of making sustainable changes in the workplace. I am convinced that prescriptive legislation does not cut it when you want to improve safety, as Lord Robens recognised. All you get are thicker law books and people less willing to read them. In most businesses I consult to, they have a problem and the problem is quite simple. They have excellent systems but nobody is implementing or enforcing them; or the employees are just not following them. In many cases they have an eager OHS Manager with perfect sets of graphs and records; he or she is busily tracking failure. What they can’t do is drive a culture change. BTW, safety culture is what you get when the boss isn’t there.

The requirement to find hazards and manage them according to the unique circumstances of the work environment and of the persons within it, does affect culture if this process is supported by senior execs and fostered or encouraged properly. Laws that encourage that approach are desirable. With regards to getting tough, fear motivation does not achieve lasting change and with a normalisation of deviance, greater risks are tolerated by degree until people are climbing on safety rails to clean equipment 6 metres from the ground. Continue reading “Understanding people is understanding safety”

Conference videos provide optimism and nerves

Several years ago I assisted the Safety Institute of Australia in providing introductory video profiles for many of their conference speakers. The intention was to provide a teaser for the content of conference presentations and to introduce more obscure speakers. The strategy is continuing with several pre-conference videos being made available on-line.

Conference teasers in 2011 include Professor Niki Ellis and Australian lawyer, Andrew Douglas.

Andrew Douglas

Andrew Douglas says that safety professionals need to be careful of jargon as it can create an impenetrable elitism that may run counter to the aim of the profession. Part of the risk of professional jargon is that it may support an inaccuracy that creates considerable damage.

Douglas identifies “zero harm” as an example of a phrase or concept that con become popular, perhaps dominant, even though it may be unsupported by OHS laws. Because the laws and the reality of workplace safety is that there will always be people who are hurt or injured at work, “zero harm” is unattainable and those who utter the “mantra of zero harm”, as Andrew Douglas describes it, lose any OHS credibility. Continue reading “Conference videos provide optimism and nerves”

Creating jobs is a waste unless those jobs are safe

Coming out of recession or, at least, a global financial crisis seems to mean that the creation of jobs is the only driver of economic growth. Governments around the world seem obsessed with employment creation but rarely is the quality of the employment ever considered.

The drive for jobs at the cost of other employment conditions such as safety was illustrated on 11 March 2011 in an article in The Australian newspaper. New South Wales’ election is only a short while away and, as it is widely considered to be an easy win for the conservative Liberal Party, government policies are already being discussed.

“Industrial relations spokesman Greg Pearce, a former partner at Freehills, said he was aware that concerns about the workplace safety system had emerged in the legal profession.

But the Coalition’s main goal was to minimise uncertainty to encourage job creation.”

The push for jobs is also indicative of short-term political thinking. Continue reading “Creating jobs is a waste unless those jobs are safe”

One person’s red tape is another’s due diligence

Australian business is soon to be required to apply the concept of “due diligence” to occupational health and safety. One would have expected the agency that is coordinating the changes to provide detailed guidance on what is expected from “due diligence”. That is not the case and so, inevitably, lawyers have stepped in (some stepped in some time ago).

Part of the due diligence obligation is that it is necessary to “verify… compliance with the business’ safety obligations” and this is unavoidably achieved by audits and subsequent paperwork. In fact, paperwork is a vital element of support for “evidence-based decision-making”. So it is with some concern that one sees the New South Wales WorkCover Authority is number three on the NSW Business Chamber’s list of “top 5 red tape offenders”(?), released on 9 March 2011 . Continue reading “One person’s red tape is another’s due diligence”

Australian Football’s corporate approach to OHS

Recently the CEO of the Australian Football League (AFL), Andrew Demetriou addressed a breakfast gathering in Melbourne on the issue of “OHS in the AFL”. He spoke almost entirely about policy initiatives without specifically addressing occupational health and safety but after a while we came to understand he was speaking of OHS from his senior executive perspective rather than the level where traditional control measures are implemented.

This was a legitimate approach to OHS but one that is rarely heard, perhaps because the AFL is a unique sporting body. There was no mention of concepts dear to the hearts of CEOs such as Zero Harm or Safety Culture. In fact there was hardly even a mention of Leadership.

Continue reading “Australian Football’s corporate approach to OHS”

Category: business

Rotting fish, safety leadership and wizards

Like this:

The How, How likely and How much of workplace safety

Like this:

Understanding people is understanding safety

Like this:

Conference videos provide optimism and nerves

Like this:

Creating jobs is a waste unless those jobs are safe

Like this:

One person’s red tape is another’s due diligence

Like this:

Australian Football’s corporate approach to OHS

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: