education – Page 8 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

What is a safety professional and what do they do?

David Provan recently provided access to one of his research papers through LinkedIn while it is open. The paper is a literature review of the factors shaping the role of a safety professional. It is a difficult and confusing read until one reaches the Conclusion. This is not Provan’s fault but is an indication of the confusing and conflicting roles, actions, obligations and qualifications of the occupational health and safety (OHS) professional revealed by the research literature.

However, the Conclusion provides a good summary of all the literature with some useful strategies to improve the OHS conversation.

Safety Culture and/or safetyculture

Kevin Jones speaking a SafetyCulture’s Sydney office

SafetyAtWorkBlog and others have been critical of some of the products and practices of Australia safety company SafetyCulture. However Luke Anear, SafetyCulture’s CEO invited me to speak at a briefing for his staff and this seemed a good opportunity to better understand his company.

The next step in incident investigations – Learning Teams

The SafeGuard conference in Auckland this week has provided some excellent occupational health and safety (OHS) insights but the standout, on Day 1, was the end of the day panel. Often these are dull and given to less than half the audience who have either had children to collect or choose to go to the casino next door.

This panel comprised two representatives of Contact Energy,

OHS and Tim White

The latest in our series of profiles on researchers who are involved with occupational health and safety research is Dr Tim White. He holds the degrees of Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical) and Doctor of Philosophy from the University of New South Wales (UNSW). His most recent appointment was as Lecturer and Researcher in Mechanical Design at UNSW.

After 10 years of working casually as a consultant while also holding salaried positions, Dr White founded Forensic Mechanical Engineers in 2013 and now works full time as a forensic engineer and expert witness. He is based in Bathurst, NSW but travels extensively for work, often flying himself to regional locations.

What attracted you to looking at workplace health and safety? Did you fall into it or always have an interest?

I feel like I just fell into it, although now that I look back, I suppose that my career progression was reasonably intuitive. A farming background prior to my first engineering degree (and subsequent time in industry) meant that I was never going to be content doing the same thing as most of my peers. Although it was not a main consideration at the time, the PhD and progression into academia was what ultimately equipped me with the ability to now work flexibly in a role where I feel as though I am – clichés aside – doing something interesting as well as making a difference.

Free online safety conference – RTW Summit

Recently I recorded my contribution to an online conference called the RTW Summit. This conference is first to Australia although other organisations have proposed such a format previously but never eventuated.

The conference has been devised and organised by Mark Stipic, a young Return To Work professional who started a podcast recently. He is intelligent and one of those people who is not afraid to take risks in the emerging world of social media.

Continue reading “Free online safety conference – RTW Summit”

Webinar audience and performance measurement

In mid-April 2017, Safe Work Australia (SWA) filmed its latest webinar at an inner-city hotel in Sydney on the theme of “Why big business needs to lead work health and safety”. SWA has established a strong place in the online safety media by providing unique information in a professional presentation.

I flew up to Sydney for the event as I had heard that SWA was looking for audience members. There were a few familiar faces in the SWA team and they were excited about the filming. But it is very hard to determine just how successful this type of webinar is. Performance statistics should be available but they are rarely shared.

OHS and Marcus Cattani

Marcus Cattani at the cricket

Dr Marcus Cattani, is a Senior Lecturer in Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) within the School of Medical and Health Sciences at Edith Cowan University and a leading Australian OHS consultant. SafetyAtWorkBlog endeavoured to glimpse the person behind the qualifications by asking Dr Cattani some safety-related questions and he was kind enough to respond.

What attracted you to looking at workplace health and safety? Did you fall into it or always have an interest?

I was lucky enough to find out about WHS when I was around 20 years old, during my environmental science based college course. At that time, in the late 1980’s the trend for people finishing my course was to work in asbestos management or in Council environmental teams, neither of which really excited me!

Category: education

What is a safety professional and what do they do?

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The next step in incident investigations – Learning Teams

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OHS and Tim White

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OHS and Marcus Cattani

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