culture – Page 60 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

A top OHS blog for 2014

I am very proud to receive recognition from LexisNexis again in 2014 for my work on the SafetyAtWorkBlog. On 16 December 2014 LexisNexis Legal Newsroom Workers’ Compensation named the SafetyAtWorkBlog as one of the Top Blogs for Workers’ Compensation and Workplace Issues. It is a great honour for a blog that is self-funded and written in my spare time.

LexisNexis has described some of the articles as “insightful and entertaining” and reflective. One article in particular was a discussion spurred by the writings of Terry Reis and would not have been possible without his initial article.

I thank LexisNexis for this unexpected honour and feel very proud to be amongst the other honourees for 2014. It is good to see new ones on the list and encourage all those OHS professionals who feel they have something to say, to say it. The more voices the OHS profession has, the richer our debates and the greater our state of knowledge.

Kevin Jones

Bring on the safety storyteller

Cover of Casebook4-2 One of the most effective ways of learning is by listening to or reading stories. This has been an accepted truth since well before the printed word, even though modern training educators sometimes justify the importance of storytelling through pseudo-neurology-speak. It is the purpose of research to verify and question truths and to, hopefully, through this process to expand our knowledge and understanding but research into the telling of safety stories seems rare.

One recent article* of research (not freely available) into storytelling and the construction industry has been written by Jodith Leung and Patrick Fong of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and although it is not overtly about occupational health and safety (OHS), the high risk nature of construction makes safety inseparable from the stories.

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Serious questions raised (again) about the role of safety culture

One of the central tenets of modern safety management is the need to establish a safety culture. However recent Australian research has cast serious doubt on whether this current belief is valid or useful.

In October 2014, the Safety Institute of Australia launched several new chapters to the Body of Knowledge (BoK) project. One of those chapters, based on a literature review and authored by David Borys, addresses organisational culture* and says that safety culture:

“… [has] limited utility for occupational health and safety (OHS) professional practice.”

“… literature has unresolved debates and definitional dilemmas.”

“…..remains a confusing and ambiguous concept in both literature and in industry, where there is little evidence of a relationship between safety culture and safety performance.”

These findings should cause all OHS professionals and company executives to re-evaluate the safety culture advice and products that they have received over the last decade.

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What if “reasonably practicable” was applied to a disease outbreak?

There seems to be an increasing trend for the principles of occupational health and safety (OHS) to be applied to matters outside the workplace. OHS principles were created to reflect the values of society in the 1970s and 80s and, although the laws have changed to reflect economic needs, the principles remain basically the same. A major legal change has been the move away from preventing harm “at the source” to one of reasonable practicability and this can reduce the overall level of safety available to workers and others.

It is interesting to note that statements on the current Ebola outbreak argue the sense in dealing with the outbreak “at the source”. Why do we accept a reasonably practicable control measure for harm at work but expect a stronger preventative measure for public health threats? Shouldn’t we be aiming to reduce all harm “at the source” regardless of the type of harm? Continue reading “What if “reasonably practicable” was applied to a disease outbreak?”

When developing a mental health/wellbeing plan, suicide should not be forgotten

Cover of MIC-Report-October-2014 In developing harm reduction and prevention strategies, the occupational health and safety (OHS) profession likes to look at worst case scenarios on the understanding that dealing with an extreme event introduces mechanisms that deal with lesser events. Partly this is a legacy of Bird’s Pyramid. During this current month of attention on workplace mental health, the issue of work-related suicide is unavoidable as a worst case scenario for depression and mental ill-health. There are several new pieces of data on work-related suicides that OHS professionals need to consider as part of their own professional development and to increase their organisational and operational relevance.

Mates In Construction

In October 2014, the Mates In Construction (MIC) program released a report on “The economic cost of suicide and suicide behaviour in the NSW construction industry and the impact of MATES in Construction suicide“. Below is a summary of some of its findings, in Australian Dollars:

“The average age of each suicide fatality among construction industry workers was 36.8 years and 37.7 years in QLD [Queensland] and NSW [New South Wales], respectively.”

“The average cost of a self-harm attempt resulting in a short-term absence from work is estimated at $925 in 2010 dollars.”

“Each self-harm attempt resulting in full incapacity is estimated at $2.78 million; and, each suicide attempt resulting in a fatality is estimated at $2.14 million”

“The key cost driver for full incapacity and a fatality is lost income, equivalent to 27.3 years productive years”

“Across all categories, the burden of cost associated with self-harm and suicide is borne largely by the government: 97% or $4.80 million of the total combined cost of $4.92 million.” (all in page 3)

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Technical and practical advice on applying the maturity matrix

Corporate maturity, especially in the area of workplace health and safety, is an increasingly important consideration in determining the preparedness of an organisation to change and embrace OHS as a crucial element of its business operations. There are several advocates of determining corporate maturity usually based around Hudson’s five levels of maturity, the most recent seems to be the Australian Constructors’ Association (ACA) in conjunction with RMIT University (see parts 8-7 of the document pictured below), but these tools are often aimed at the upper levels of an organisation.

Recently the Center for Construction Research and Training (CPWR) produced a series of handouts that apply a variation of the maturity matrix to separate components of safety culture.

These levels include:

Uninformed
Reactive
Compliant
Proactive
Exemplary.

Continue reading “Technical and practical advice on applying the maturity matrix”

Dangerous personalities making work unsafe – really?

Australian recruiting firm, Sacs Consulting, has released the findings of a survey entitled “Dangerous Personalities making work unsafe“. Such surveys are predominantly marketing exercises and usually, as in this case, there is a limited amount of data available but the results are often broadly distributed and add to the discussion about workplace safety.

The headline itself is a red flag to occupational health and safety (OHS) professionals who are old enough to remember the debate about “blaming the worker” for OHS breaches, injuries and illnesses. Most safety managers and corporate safety programs are applying a “no blame” philosophy to combat the worker focus but the reality is that workers are still being blamed and being dismissed for safety breaches. The Sacs Consulting survey confirms the growing worker focus by looking at the personal rather than the organisational.

The Sacs study found:

“…that some people still ignore OHS rules and act unsafely in the workplace, whereas others value their own safety and that of their colleagues so actively that they try to improve the safety of their workplace. Using personality and values testing, the study was able to predict whether an individual is more or less
likely to be safe at work.” (page 1) Continue reading “Dangerous personalities making work unsafe – really?”

Category: culture

A top OHS blog for 2014

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Bring on the safety storyteller

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Serious questions raised (again) about the role of safety culture

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What if “reasonably practicable” was applied to a disease outbreak?

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When developing a mental health/wellbeing plan, suicide should not be forgotten

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Technical and practical advice on applying the maturity matrix

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Dangerous personalities making work unsafe – really?

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