Category: education

CertIV OHS training in Beijing

Several years ago I met an OHS professional from Singapore, Daniel LO.  Daniel relocated to Australia and has continued his OHS career.  Last month Daniel conducted a Certificate IV OHS course for the Sinopec Corporation.  As China becomes even more important to the world economy, pressure is increasing to show an acceptable commitment ot workplace safety.  We, in the West, have seen this most in China’s coal mining industry and some of its manufacturers, particularly for some global brands.

In talking with Daniel last week, he offered a short article on the training course he instigated and conducted.  Daniel is an asset to Australia and will be one OHS professional to watch.  Here is his contribution:

An OHS Professional Report on Safety Developments in China

Since China’s entry into the World Trade Organisation in December 2001, there has been much pressure from the international community for China to raise its Occupational Health and Safety standards.   The introduction of the Safe Production Law in 2002 and more recently the adoption of the Law on the Prevention and Control of Occupational Diseases in 2008 is the response of a determined government, to ensure that its regulatory framework catches up with the nation’s unprecedented economic growth.

Heeding this call to protect workers’ safety and health by investing in OHS training is state owned enterprise – China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation – one of the largest state-owned major petroleum companies in China, The company has made it to the top ten ranking by Fortune Global 500, is also known as Sinopec Corp, and is listed in the Shanghai, New York and Hong Kong Stock Exchanges.

In July 2009, as an OHS professional with bilingual ability, Daniel Lo personally negotiated, prepared and delivered the first ever CertIV in OHS in Sinopec (Beijing).  This flagship competency-based training and assessment  is also part of Sinopec’s policy of “Safety First, Prevention Foremost, All Involvement and Comprehensive Control," to achieve a better Health Safety and Environment (HSE) performance.  Participants for this training are project managers, safety managers and supervisors from various oil fields in Saudi, Sudan, Ecuador, Yemen, Iran, Nigeria, and China.  The key success of this program has been the training and sharing of occupational safety and health management system in context of China’s language, culture and history.

Daniel LO is presently engaged as a senior OHS consultant by IFAP.  He has an MBA, BSc in Mechanical Engineering, Specialist Diploma in OHS, CertIV in OHS, Diploma in Information Technology, Advanced Certificate in Training and Assessment.  He is also a Certified lead auditor for OHSAS18001.

New Bachelor degree in OHS

A new Bachelor degree in OHS is being offered at the University of Queensland.  Professor of Occupational Health and Safety Mike Capra says in a media release that

“graduates would become a new generation of highly-trained OHS specialists who would be in demand due to a workforce shortage.”

The New South Wales WorkCover has had to remind employers not to cut corners on safety due to the tough economic climate.  With the unemployment rate increasing in Australia, the demand claimed by Professor Capra is disputable.

The issue of employability was raised in a discussion forum recently.  One person pointed out that employers are able to be more selective.  When they have to choose between a graduate fresh from university or an applicant with experience, experience will win every time.

It will be interesting to see what programs the Bachelor Degree has in place to provide the necessary practical experience.

Hopefully on graduation in 2015, the career opportunities have improved with a stronger economy.

Professor Capra is quoted further.

“The program was developed at the request of the OHS industry, including peak body the Safety Institute of Australia, which saw the need for a professional qualification in the field,” Professor Capra said.  “The lack of well-qualified OHS professionals is causing alarm among members of major OHS associations, government authorities and employers.”

The biggest motivation for improved professionalism has come from WorkSafe Victoria through the Health and Safety Professionals Alliance, and only within the last couple of years.  It is is the “alarm” of the OHS regulator that seems to have been the biggest factor.  At least WorkSafe  is willing to fund the development of such a program having provided a grant of almost $A400,000 recently.

Some of the claims in the promotional video for the course are dubious (“never be out of a job”, for example) and the video could pass, in parts, for a tourism ad, but if the target audience is school leavers, the focus on fun, sun and job variety is probably relevant.

If it is the first course of its kind in Australia, as claimed, it will be very interesting to watch how it is received.

Kevin Jones

Professionalism and academia

The Australia safety industry is being pushed by OHS regulators to improve its professionalism.  Upgrading of qualifications in any discipline always generates conflict between the educated and the competent.  OHS is no different.

In The Age newspaper on 20 July 2009 was an interesting article that provides a brief overview of postgraduate studies.  The article makes no mention of workplace safety courses but provides an interesting illustration of the dichotomy above.

The full article deserves reading as it illustrates cost and time issues but there were several points made that seem pertinent to recent moves in the OHS profession.

The president of the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations, Nigel Palmer, is quoted as saying

“It’s clear that we’ve seen a dramatic increase in fees. Whether or not there has been a corresponding increase in the quality of those courses remains an open question”.

Most postgraduates undertake their studies while employed.  This makes it much easier to manage time, if the company provides study leave options, and it provides a ready source of material for business studies, in particular.  Some companies also assist with the payment of fees.  This is not the case for those who are seeking employment or who are self-employed.  The costs in money and time almost makes postgraduate study an impossibility.

The postgraduate courses themselves are often hard to define.  Professor Richard James of the University of Melbourne’s Centre for the Study of Higher Education admits that most institutions would have difficulty defining a master’s degree.

Holly Alexander chose to study outside the universities after completing a Bachelor of Arts degree.  She found the practicality of her course immensely useful and the article identifies a crucial differentiation between academics and practitioners.

“Of critical importance to her was the fact her teachers practised their craft and provided invaluable industry contacts.”

The OHS profession in Australia is developing a “core body of knowledge” which seems to be vital to the profession but noone has explained why, even though hundreds of thousands of dollars are being spent on the task.  And still there remains those experienced OHS professionals and practitioners who wonder why after twenty years of successful consulting and advice they need to benchmark themselves to “prove” their professionalism.

Outside the core body of knowledge, Holly Alexander’s point above is very important.  The academics and educators in any profession need to have an industry network that functions in the real world and their professional skills must be able to be applied practically, otherwise the qualification is meaningless.

Kevin Jones

Being competent is more than just passing the competencies

The SafetyAtWorkBlog article on OHS professional competence has generated some lively debate on a discussion forum of the American Society of Safety Engineers.  Jim Leemann makes a fundamental point

“Determining if someone is competent to do a job is totally different from determining if someone has mastered the competencies to do the job”.

This is an important element in the discussion on qualifications versus experience. Often it is the case of the technical qualifications gaining one an audience but experience that keeps the audience listening.  Jim expresses it this way

“My empirical research on competencies that distinguish superior performance has revealed that performance is driven more by behavioral competencies than technical competencies. In fact, mastering technical competencies only earns an OHS pro a seat at the decision-maker’s table; it has nothing to do with distinguished superior performance. In fact, technical competencies do not do anything to distinguish superior performance because decision-makers expect OHS pros to have mastered their technical competencies before engaging them in any decision-making processes; hence the reason they have been invited to the decision-making table.”

One engineer expressed views that often come up in discussions in this area – the feeling that experience is less valued than technical qualifications or, in some cases, one’s sphere of influence.

“…I have been in the EH&S field in some form or another for 25 plus years. I believe there is much to be said of the school of hard knocks or on the job learning. Bottom line I would find it very hard at least in North America to have a new regulator show up at my door with text books in hand and try and explian(sic) some of the regulation that I have worked with for years and determine I don’t know my job.“

Jim’s points may be the issues that have underpinned  concerns about the Australian processes for establishing a safety profession.

There is nothing uniquely OHS about this dichotomy but because health and safety in Australia has not matured to the extent it has in other countries the conflict is continuing.  Australia needs, and deserves, someone to cut through the political and personal agendas to implement much needed reform.  A good opportunity could have occurred with the establishment of Safe Work Australia but the heavy reform agenda of the Rudd government means that no department is going to taken on more than they have to.

Kevin Jones

Swine Flu – isolation – a personal view

Australia’s swine flu numbers are increasing and the government is introducing new measures regularly in response. I write this post from self-imposed isolation from the swine flu outbreak in my son’s high school.  There are some interesting decisions that have been made which provide me with optimism but also illustrate some useful personnel management actions.

I heard about a confirmed case of swine flu at the high school at my son’s soccer match last Sunday.  I was asked by a soccer mum whether my son knew a boy at his high school who was a confirmed swine flu case.  He did and we had not heard.

When I returned home there was no message from the school on my answering machine and nothing on my mobile.  I looked on the internet and the case was reported but more importantly the school was to be closed for a week.  I confirmed the media report by looking at the local health department website.  The case and control measure was mentioned.

However, what does it mean in the broader context when a school is closed?  Is my son in “isolation”? Are the other family members?  The websites could not help with this so I rang the helpline listed on the website.  Yes, my son should have no contact with people outside the house and we should monitor his health, and that of others in the household, for symptoms.

I knew my employer had issued an email from Human Resources in late April advising what to do in the case of an outbreak of swine flu.  However, this is not much help for the days prior to symptoms or confirmation of the infection.  As I am not in isolation I could be going to work as normal and potentially and innocently infecting work colleagues – not a good risk control.  (I have written elsewhere on the matter of presenteeism, here was a preventative opportunity)

I put some risk management questions to the employer even though my advice would be to have me work from home.  Within 12 hours, my employer had set me up to work from home for the rest of the week.  The IT adviser emailed me a procedure entitled “Flu Pandemic Remote Access”.  I commented that I was a little surprised that the company was this prepared.  The IT adviser said it was only new and I was the first user.

My wife’s employer is still assessing the situation but we are of the same opinion that if work can be done from home, we should be located at home for the remainder of the isolation period.  We are lucky that our occupations afford us this option.

On Monday morning the school rang me to answer any questions about swine flu.  I didn’t ask any as we had done our homework and arranged to go to school to collect some of my son’s schoolwork for his time in isolation.

It could be asked why the school waited 24 hours to notify me? How does any company or organisation contact up to 700 people on the weekend?  These are issues that are currently also being discussed in a Royal Commission into Victorian Bushfires in Melbourne.  The school had all of its staff and teachers on the phones after a meeting at 9.00am that morning.  The school’s website did not get an update until Monday morning but not everyone turns on their PC on a Sunday.   In the context of the slow encroachment of swine flu in Australia, I think this was reasonable.

It should be noted that although my son was friends with the infected boy only the immediate classmates were provided with Tamiflu and that this occurred on the Sunday – a fair response.

Anticipating the family being at home for a week, I purchased some supplies including a thermometer as a useful way of identifying  at least one of the swine flu symptoms.

Two days into isolation and there are no symptoms.

From a professional OHS perspective, communication has been acceptable. Available online information was okay and company support reassuring.  At this early stage of the outbreak in Australia, we are optimistic and not worrying ourselves over issues over which we have no control.

Kevin Jones

New Youth@Work website

The South Australian government has launched a website focusing on young people at work, not surprisingly called Youth@Work.  

South Australia has a habit of marching to a slightly different beat to the dominant Australian States on OHS.  They did not follow WorkSafe Victoria’s “Homecomings” ads and they have been well ahead of anyone in researching and explaining the relevance of wellness as an OHS issue.

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Blue Card training needs a review

Most workers meet OHS training through short courses, perhaps even inductions.  Few have the time, the desire of the finances to pursue a tertiary qualification.

Australia has recently achieved a uniformity in its “card system” of OHS training for construction workers.  The card concept originated from the Safety Passport used in some European industries and is intended to provide a common set of OHS skills to workers so as to reduce on-site induction time and costs.  It is a worthy initiative and has improved safety awareness on work sites however any training program needs to include self-improvement.

(A national OHS induction system should be part of the Australian Government’s response to the recommendations of the model OHS law review panel.)

Current training seems to have reached the point where too much is trying to be done in too little time. Blue Card training can be undertaken in 6 hours and covers over 50 workplace issues!!  Yes the training is only for “safety awareness” but 50 issues in around 5 hours is absurd unless the training runs something like

  • Smoking in the Workplace – DON’T DO IT
  • Job Safety Analysis – GOT TO HAVE ONE
  • Fatigue Management – GO TO BED EARLY
  • Alcohol and Drug – MAKE SURE THE EFFECTS ARE GONE BY MONDAY MORNING
  • PPE – WEAR WHATEVER THEY GIVE YOU

One would have to ask if this training is really worth it.  The main reason the training is offered at all is that it is a mandatory requirement for many worksites and the construction industry.  But what good is having a Blue Card if the training is too simple, too generic?

A universal/national level of safety awareness or induction would be ideal but the current system and its implementation leaves a lot to be desired.  Let’s hope that reform of this process is on the agenda of the new Safe Work Australia organisation.

Kevin Jones

Below are the components of a Blue Card safety awareness training program currently offered in Australia: 

Module 1: OSH – The Law, Your Employer and You

  • legislation, regulations, codes of practice, guidelines and standards
  • right to refuse work
  • responsibility for regulation by WorkSafe
  • general duties of care – public safety, employee, employer, manufacturers and suppliers
  • safety and health representatives and safety and health committees
  • resolution of safety and health issues
  • workplace policies and procedures
  • reporting of serious occurrences, injuries and hazards
  • workers’ compensation

Module 2: Managing Risks in the Workplace

  • understanding the meaning of hazard and risk
  • risk assessment/management
  • control methods for managing risks
  • job safety analysis worksheets
  • five steps to complete a JSA
  • emergency procedures and response plans
  • emergency situations
  • emergency response training

Module 3: Staying Safe in the Building and Construction Industry

  • employee responsibility
  • effects of shift work
  • how to manage the effects of shift work
  • fatigue
  • your personal alertness
  • diabetes
  • obesity
  • depression
  • safety management systems
  • benefits of a safety management system
  • examples of safety rules – equipment and tool safety
  • performing high risk work
  • housekeeping
  • personal protective equipment
  • prevention of skin cancer, eye damage and mosquito born viruses
  • safe manual handling
  • alcohol and other drugs at the workplace
  • smoking
  • alarm systems and emergency exits/escape routes
  • responding to emergencies
  • fire equipment
  • first aid

Module 4: Environment and Other Considerations

  • the working environment and weather conditions
  • heat stress
  • hypothermia
  • safety signage
  • tag and lock out isolation procedures
  • environmental issues and responsibilities
  • vegetation
  • native fauna
  • water pollution
  • atmospheric pollution
  • entry into confined spaces
  • working at heights
  • safety rules for working on ladders
  • electrical safety
  • hazardous substances
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