Ever since I read the London Encyclopaedia during my honeymoon in England, I have waited for a similar encyclopaedia based on workplace safety. However, the world has changed since then and such an encyclopaedia would most likely to be created as an app.
The London Encyclopaedia is indexed by places, streets and addresses, and so should a “Safety Encyclopaedia” app through a localised map of workplace fatalities.
SafetyAtWorkBlog has had a successful 2015, consolidating itself as a valid independent voice on workplace health and safety, particularly in Australia. But readers don’t get access to some of the statistics for the site and as a year in review exercise below are the top five most-read articles written in 2015, highest readership first:
Impairment argument fails to convince Fair Work Commission over unfair dismissal
Research raises serious questions on SIA’s certification push
Some are losing faith in the Victorian Workcover Authority
Safety learnings from construction Continue reading “SafetyAtWorkBlog’s most popular articles of 2015”
The International Network of Safety & Health Practitioner Organisations (INSHPO) has launched the “The OHS Professional
Capability Framework – A Global Framework for Practice“. The document reflects many of the issues raised in recently published research on occupational health and safety (OHS) professionalism, accreditation and certification. However there are a couple of useful issues to note, from a very brief review, that indicate a major step forward.
Professional, Practitioner, Generalist
Australian OHS professionals have felt insulted over the last few years by the use of the title “OHS Generalist”. The proponents of this concept failed to understand that the term was divisive (and insulting to some) and this failure indicates a persistent problem in communicating change to the OHS profession in a manner that fosters cooperation. The INSHPO document seems to drop the Generalist category so beloved by the Australian OHS Education Accreditation Board. Continue reading “OHS Professionals get, or want, global attention”
Susan Fleming, Managing Director of Acting Consulting Training Australia attended a breakfast seminar on November 10 2015 and has provided this guest post .
“We have been shouting about safety for some time and in contrast whispering about well-being and health in the workplace. We need to address this as a matter of urgency”
Judith Hackitt, Chair of the UK Health and Safety Executive addressed the issue of University of Western Australia Centre For Safety (UWA Centre for Safety) breakfast on 10 November 2015.
In a prudent and well-programmed session, the UWA Centre for Safety inspired good debate about the business impact the well-being of employees is having on the workplace.
1300 occupational health and safety representatives in one room provides a great deal of passion about workplace safety. These are not the OHS suits, the regulators or the safety app spruikers that other conferences attract.
There is talk about safety leadership but few are thinking about the CEOs. They see leadership in themselves. Indeed, it may be a major step forward for the OHS sector to start to separate OHS leaders from OHS leadership. The room this morning had hundreds of OHS leaders. Continue reading “Half time at union OHS representatives conference”
On 30 September 2015, SafetyAtWorkBlog highlighted a conversation about inspector numbers from the Tasmanian Parliament. The information was confusing but crucial in understanding WorkSafe Tasmania’s occupational health and safety enforcement capacity and strategy.
Below are some questions posed to WorkSafe Tasmania in an attempt to clarify the issues and the OHS regulator’s replies. Two responses prompted comment on workplace health and wellbeing strategies.
The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) is an integral stakeholder in the improvement in the safety performance of quad bikes. However, some of its past strategies have been belligerent, divisive and have limited the safety debate. There are hints that the FCAI’s communication strategy has changed and this can only be for the better.
On October 1, 2015, FCAI issued a media release that was a gentle questioning of the Star Safety Rating program recently advocated by quad bike safety advocates and researchers. The FCAI says that the research on which the rating system is based
“…does not correlate with real world performance is premature and needs to be further explored.”
Continue reading “A possible change in approach on quad bike safety”