Category: education

Safety learnings from construction

Kevin Jones 2015
The author onsite earlier this year

I have recently finished some years of full-time work as a safety adviser on a range of construction projects in Australia and below is a list of some of what I have learnt (in no particular order).

Ask questions

People may initially think you are an idiot but, if you are genuinely interested, they will explain what they are doing (usually with some pride in their tone) and offer suggestions of how to do it better or safer.

Follow through

If you have said that you will look into an issue or provide additional information, do it. If you do not, your credibility with the worker you were talking with and, likely, their supervisor and workmates, is gone.

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Building a better future but maybe not a safer one

Cover of ACTU Blueprint 2015The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has a strong commitment to safe and healthy workplaces in Australia and would likely assert that nothing is more important than the safety of workers. However the latest submission to government on economic and social reform, “Building a Better Future – a Strong Economy for All” (not yet available online), has missed the chance to bring occupational health and safety (OHS) into the current policy debate on economic and productivity reforms. Continue reading “Building a better future but maybe not a safer one”

Australia’s Safe Work Month launched

The CEO of Safe Work Australia, Michelle Baxter, has launched National Safe Work Month in a video address this morning. This speech is the first of many online Virtual Safety Seminars for 2015. The seminar program is much expanded since last year’s inaugural attempt and a recent discussion on this program’s development is available here. The videos will be good additions to the Australian body of knowledge on workplace safety.

This video illustrates some of the challenges in producing videos and webinars. The lack of commonly used acronyms for workplace safety  such as OHS or WHS can disturb the vocal flow by requiring formal and clear speech. The use of an autocue or teleprompter is also a skill that requires practice, as UK politician Jeremy Corbyn has recently acknowledged.

Continue reading “Australia’s Safe Work Month launched”

The rebuilding of OHS conferences

All conference delegates want to hear cutting-edge, radical or step-change solutions or strategies but what happens when the conference speakers are reinforcing what you already know? That is the situation facing the delegates of the Safety Institute of Australia’s (SIA) National Convention.

On the first day of the conference, local and international speakers have suggested the delegates, almost all occupational health and safety (OHS) professionals, do what they are already doing – talk about safety, build relationships, report on the positives and the lead indicators. Continue reading “The rebuilding of OHS conferences”

Safe Work Australia is gearing up for National Safe Work Month

Last year, Safe Work Australia (SWA) gambled on a series of online videos and live events through National Safe Work Month in the form of Virtual Safety Seminars (VSS). VSS provided good online content that continues to be viewed but such a safety communication strategy should stand up to questioning, particularly if it arises from a Government agency.

One of the most important elements of any safety communication strategy is to attempt to measure its success.  The strategy may be aimed at raising awareness of an issue, providing information or promoting a service or product but the important part is to structure the strategy so that it can be measured and for that measurement to occur.  The OHS sector in Australia has a tradition of trying something because it is a good idea and then considering the effort to be a measure of success.  Too many strategies magnify awareness of an issue of which the community is already aware rather than developing a strategy for change, and of tangible change. In some ways the community’s tolerance for awareness over change is starting to wear thin.

With this in mind, SafetyAtWorkBlog posed some questions to Safe Work Australia: Continue reading “Safe Work Australia is gearing up for National Safe Work Month”

Factual reporting and the OHS Body of Knowledge

Pam Pryor,  Registrar, Australian OHS Education Accreditation Board, responds to some issues raised in a recent blog article.

The Safety Institute of Australia and the Australian OHS Education Accreditation Board welcomes informed, constructive comment on their activities and on OHS in general.

The paper Reflection on the SIA Ltd professional project and the Body of Knowledge (Pearse, McCosker & Paul, 2015) makes a number of assertions which must be addressed to ensure readers have an accurate understanding of the issues and the discussion. This article addresses just one of these assertions: The OHS Body of Knowledge promotes a narrow technical view of OHS.

While commenting that the reason for the existence of the OHS Body of Knowledge is unclear Pearse et al., also note that there is no industry-wide agreement on the educational requirements to practice as an OHS professional; that there is no unified body of knowledge for OHS; and the evidence base in relatively low and underdeveloped. All comments with which we would agree and also clear reasons for the development of an OHS Body of Knowledge and the discussions which have arisen, and will continue to occur, on what should comprise the OHS Body of Knowledge for Generalist OHS Professionals. Continue reading “Factual reporting and the OHS Body of Knowledge”

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