Jennifer Moss is a prominent analyst on work-related burnout and mental health. She is one of the few receiving global attention for pointing out that the prevention and control of the burgeoning mental health crisis are best addressed by reassessing and redesigning how organisations are run and workers are managed. Her latest book, due out in a few weeks, will supercharge the debate on managing psychosocial risks and psychological hazards at work.
Continue reading “Burnout prevention to receive considerable media attention”Category: culture
New data shows farmers are still not working as safely as they could
Recently, the Weekly Times reported* some disturbing statistics about farm-related deaths in Victoria. It summarised the AgHealth Australia data as:
“Farm deaths have doubled in the past 12 months, with vehicles the leading contributing factor, as farmers and authorities label the issue an emergency.
Seventy-two people died and there were 133 serious injuries in 2024, new AgHealth Australia data shows, up from 32 deaths in 2023 and 55 in 2022.
In Victoria, there were 16 deaths in 2024, up from seven in 2023.”
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Psychosocial and psychological wisdom
LinkedIn is becoming similar to Facebook in some ways, but it still provides excellent interpretations of occupational health and safety (OHS) laws and important social perspectives. Below are two such posts, reproduced with permission from the authors Richard Coleman and David Burroughs. (I have asked Richard to write some articles exclusively for SafetyAtWorkBlog)
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Psychosocial hazards discussions are everywhere, as they should be
New information about the need to prevent psychosocial hazards at work keeps coming. Victoria will join the workplace mental health train a little later than planned. It went from engine to caboose in four years. SafeWorkNSW has released guidance on Designing Work to Manage Psychosocial Risks and an enforceable undertaking by a New South Wales mine from a psychosocial incident.
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Authentic selves, culture and racism
Culture has perhaps become the dominant theme in modern occupational health and safety (OHS). Possibly more dominant than Leadership. Culture remains an amorphous concept that is an inclusive adjective but also unhelpful.
Several recent events started making connections in my OHS brain that I am still working through:
- Online racist statements by two Australian nurses
- A Harvard Business Review Special Issue called “The Secrets of Great Culture” and
- An article by Professor Lena Wang and others on the separation of work and life.
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The economics of OHS and the need to think upstream
Michael Belzer and Michael Quinlan have outlined the economics of occupational health and safety (OHS) in the editorial of the latest edition of The Economic and Labour Relations Review. This contrasts with earlier research about the business case for OHS as it broadens the pool of influences more broadly. They write:
“The economic approaches to OHS in the papers in this issue identify externalities and suggest that incomplete market analysis has created an inappropriate permission to ignore uncompensated costs in labour, product, and service markets; these incomplete markets lead to greater social risk as well as inefficiency. More integrated understandings of OHS are challenging but research performed without them leads to narrow and partial understandings.” (page 483)
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Amazon’s OHS risks and practices revealed
The political upheavals in the United States and the changes to corporate ideologies are concerning, primarily because of the potential infection of other nations. Businesses are not as globally connected as much of the media coverage implies. Still, Australian businesses watch the actions of global companies, and Amazon has been prominent in workplace and occupational health and safety (OHS) practices.
Recently, the US Senate Labor Committee released a damning report into Amazon’s high workplace injury rates, which includes important information for similar industries in local jurisdictions.
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