employers – Page 2 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

“Does my business comply with the OHS/WHS law?”

Employers struggle to know if their businesses comply with the local occupational health and safety (OHS) or work health and safety (WHS) laws. They always have and, likely, always will. Employers are hungry for certainty and are often annoyed with OHS advisers who refuse to give a definitive answer to the question in this article’s title.

In the 1990s, particularly in Victoria, there was almost a frenzy for a simple audit tool developed through WorkSafe Victoria called SafetyMAP. It disappeared well over a decade ago, but my Goddess, it was popular, and small business operators especially wanted it. Even when its effectiveness was questionable.

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“Can I afford OHS?”

When you fail to speak in support of occupational health and safety (OHS) or, perish the thought, speak against OHS, you must be speaking in support of profit. Some would say the connection is not that simple, but really, it is.

Employers’ critical concern is, “Can I afford OHS?” This question shows a misunderstanding of OHS’s role in business success and continuity. The question would not occur if OHS had been integrated into the design of the business, its operations, and profit forecasts. OHS costs a lot more when it needs to be retrofitted to an existing company.

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Business values and OHS impacts

No one outside occupational health and safety (OHS) talks about OHS. Outside of scandals and disasters, OHS is a fringe consideration, especially in the media—social and mainstream. So, OHS needs to insert itself into mainstream conversations. The column by economics journalist Ross Gittins in The Age newspaper on September 23, 2024, says much about OHS without mentioning it.

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Veterans, Suicide, Culture and Crompvoets

For many years, occupational health and safety (OHS) has been fixated on “Culture” as an encompassing term for what management activity does not work and what does. The focus has faded slightly since the COVID-19 pandemic. Still, Culture made an important reappearance this week with the delivery of the final report of Australia’s Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide. However, some of the most telling analyses of the safety culture in the Australian Defence Forces occurred in 2021 with the work of Samantha Crompvoets.

NOTE: this article discusses suicides

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HR is “evolving” but slowly

Human Resources (HR) is on a slow journey to fully understand the efforts and strategies for preventing workplace psychosocial hazards. This article from Phoebe Armstrong in HRMonthly is a good example. It will nudge HR readers in the right direction. Still, the article has many curiosities and a reticence to fully accept the legislative occupational health and safety (OHS) approach.

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OHS and the CFMEU

Australian media and politicians have been frothing over revelations and allegations of criminal and bikie gang influence in the country’s largest construction industry trade union, the CFMEU (Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union). The coverage has been almost entirely concerned with industrial relations, but occupational health and safety (OHS) is present in any trade union scandal, though usually on the fringes. OHS appeared in several areas of the controversy in late August 2024.

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Kevin’s “Law of Common Sense” and the Right To Disconnect

This week, the “Right-to-Disconnect” became law in Australia. According to a prominent business newspaper, the Australian Financial Review (AFR), this is the latest example of the risk of the sky falling. It is not. Instead, the right-to-disconnect is a rebalancing of the exploitation of workers’ psychological health and that of their families. But you wouldn’t know this from the mainstream media coverage. There is no mention of mental health in the printed AFR article.

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