business – Page 205 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

Looking for the causes of workplace harm can change one’s world view

The New York Times reported on 17 May 2010 that psychologists have started considering the causes of workplace stress. About time!

The report says that

“Employees are unhappy about the design of their jobs, the health of their organizations and the quality of their managers..”

and that unhappy workers have a high risk of heart attacks and depression.

The article is principally an interview with the author of a new personnel management book that identifies that performance reviews are a generator of unhappiness and stress. This concept has been circulating for some time and goes part way to making workplaces safer.

Job design, mentioned above, can be broadened to include how people are managed. Personnel management and human resources (HR) are a crucial element of any business but the NYT article indicates a growing realisation that the foundations of this management, how jobs are designed, have generated some of the hazards that HR is now tasked to control. Continue reading “Looking for the causes of workplace harm can change one’s world view”

Artificial intelligence in safety

For safety management and the profession to progress, the information horizons must broaden. Particularly in Australia, safety research runs the risk of developing upper-class chinless inbreds as, in many cases, it is divorced from reality and often does not look beyond the horizon both in distance or time. But research work in other disciplines may have applications in the safety profession.

The work of a doctoral student at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Xun Wang, may provide some indication of new tools that safety & HR managers could be using in the future. Continue reading “Artificial intelligence in safety”

Gods and Leaders – the fantasy distraction of the safety profession

For years, safety professionals have whinged about their profession and their skills not receiving the attention of Chief Executive Officers and board members. They take some solace in the occasional missive that executives understand leadership and, by extension, safety leadership but the reality is that OHS professionals do not understand CEOs.

CEOs are Olympian Gods and OHS professionals live amongst the crowd of citizens in the valleys. Occasionally a God will go slumming and have sex with one of us but it does not mean that they respect us or, even that they will remember our name. If we are lucky, they may remember that we were welcoming.

CEO attitudes were discussed in the Australian Financial Review on 21 May 2010, in an article about corporate governance Continue reading “Gods and Leaders – the fantasy distraction of the safety profession”

Lack of separation of pedestrians and forklifts results in $A24k fine

SafeWorkSA has released details of a successful OHS prosecution concerning forklifts, yet again. But the full judgement has more management information than is usual and deserves to be read in full.

The circumstances, according to a media release (not yet available online) are

“…an incident… in August 2007 in which a 56 year old delivery driver tripped over the tines of a forklift which was about to exit the curtained doorway of a cold-room.”

The judgement in the South Australian Industrial Court expands upon the charge:

“… that Kerafi, being the occupier of a workplace, had failed to ensure so far as was reasonably practicable that means of access to and egress from the workplace was safe. Continue reading “Lack of separation of pedestrians and forklifts results in $A24k fine”

Eliminate the safety risk – sack the worker

A curious workplace safety and industrial relations issue has appeared in the Golden Circle factory in Queensland as reported in the Courier-Mail. 57-year-old forklift driver, Lance Pedersen has been sacked because he was found to be morbidly obese and with osteoarthritis in his knees.

The newspaper article raises many personnel management issues and there are sure to be more issues that have not been reported but a remarkable quote is reported from a company spokesperson:

“Golden Circle has an obligation to ensure the health and safety of all our employees,” the spokesman said. “We are therefore unable to continue to employ Mr Pedersen.” Continue reading “Eliminate the safety risk – sack the worker”

Eye safety campaign – a good start but shortsighted on safety

On 19 May 2010, the Optometrists Association Australia (OAA) launched a national eye safety campaign. This campaign is worthwhile but illustrates some of the shortcomings of this type of campaign.

The OAA media release states:

“Sixty per cent of all eye injuries happen at work, .. warn optometrists who are urging every workplace to put eye safety procedures in place as part of a new national campaign.

Optometrists Association Australia (OAA) and HOYA Lens Australia will launch ‘Eye accidents change lives forever’ a comprehensive workplace eye safety campaign this week.” [links added]

The need for eye safety procedures is clear but the recommended action is too narrow. The entire focus of the campaign is to increase awareness of eye hazards and to increase the usage of safety eyewear. There is no focus on the reduction of the hazard itself, just the protection of the worker’s eyes. Continue reading “Eye safety campaign – a good start but shortsighted on safety”

BP, safety culture and integrity management

Tom von Aschwege has provided SafetyAtWorkBlog with a long article that was intended as a comment on recent articles concerning the safety culture of BP. The comment deserved to be an article in order to provide more prominence to von Aschwege’s views. Links, where appropriate, have been added and format has been tweaked.

“I came by Ross Macfarlane’s article totally by accident. I regret to say that I completely agree with him, because I have made some of the same, or very similar observations. I too am an ex-BP employee, and I too have a strong sense of dismay at what is occurring in the Gulf of Mexico.

Prior to retiring from BP in 2009, I worked in Integrity Management roles for 6 years in the BP deepwater Gulf of Mexico (GoM) organization. In those 6 years we put massive amounts of time and effort into improving Integrity Management (IM) processes and practices for GoM operations – even more so after the 2005 Texas City accident, Thunder Horse listing incident, and Alaska pipeline failure. I am thoroughly convinced that BP has done more and accomplished more in this area overall than any other GoM operator. Yet somehow these things still happen in BP operations, and I wonder how that can be. How can BP be so unlucky, and other GoM operators, with far fewer technical resources and knowledge, not have this happen to them? Continue reading “BP, safety culture and integrity management”

Category: business

Looking for the causes of workplace harm can change one’s world view

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Artificial intelligence in safety

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Gods and Leaders – the fantasy distraction of the safety profession

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Lack of separation of pedestrians and forklifts results in $A24k fine

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Eliminate the safety risk – sack the worker

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Eye safety campaign – a good start but shortsighted on safety

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BP, safety culture and integrity management

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