ethics – Page 45 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

Analysing safety leadership can be distracting

Any blog about occupational health and safety (OHS) will write repeatedly about leadership. Safe Work Australia advocates leadership as beneficial to OHS:

“When leaders make sure all business risks, including work health and safety, are effectively managed, and continually monitor and review all areas of their business’ performance, they will be open to opportunities for innovation, and alert to emerging hazards.”

But leadership requires someone to apply it and often, in the OHS sphere, people wait for others to show leadership rather than seeing their own potential.

Psychologically health workplaces

In some of his research into the operations of WorkSafe Victoria, OHSIntros provided this graph of workers compensation claims for psychosocial issues. Not only does it show the extent of the issue in recent years, it provides a clear historic starting point for the hazard – a hazard that has created an industry of its own and that has complicated the management of workplace safety.

Pages from Paper 3 - 30th anniversary of Victorian OHS system 2015

OHSIntros comments on this increase by saying “the conventional rationale in OHS is that when you identify and focus on a risk, the claims flood in…” but significantly states that this logic remains untested. Occupational health and safety (OHS) seems to run on untested logic.

Clearly psychosocial issues in the workplace present a problem. OHSIntros writes that in 2013-14 psychosocial claims overtook manual handling on average cost amounts of A$88,000 to A$67,000, respectively (page 11)

Recently

Leadership or cowardice?

Few would argue against the need for occupational health and safety (OHS) regulation for high-risk work but many are arguing against OHS laws on the basis of low-risk workplaces. It seems logical that low risk work should not require laws but perhaps the traditional definition of OHS and risk is colouring our judgement. Perhaps some are making these arguments because they are afraid to change. Perhaps some of these leaders are, in fact, cowards.

New Zealand

There is discussion in New Zealand currently about exempting small “low-risk” businesses from some OHS obligations in the name of “red tape” but also on the understanding that small business seems to equal low risk. (Similar discussions, or changes, have occurred in the UK, Australia and the US) Continue reading “Leadership or cowardice?”

Annual Reports need OHS engagement

Successful safety management relies on communication. Sometimes this is informal, as in prestart meetings or toolbox talks; sometimes it is formal, such as with Annual Reports and legacy documents. It is important for occupational health and safety (OHS) professionals to understand how to communicate in these two formats and to address different audiences and readerships.

The latest Australasian Reporting Awards were handed out last week with the Civil Aircraft Safety Authority garnering the Work Health and Safety Reporting Award for 2015. Safe Work Australia’s Chief Executive Officer, Michelle Baxter, said, about the award:

“By including high quality work health and safety information in your annual report, you can establish your organisation as a leader in work health and safety, one in which work health and safety is not an ‘add on’, but integrated into business decisions and processes.”

In terms of Annual Reports, the OHS professional needs to be involved early in the report writing process rather than, as seems to happen most of the time, leaving it to the company secretary or the Communications unit. Annual reports need a consistent

The dichotomy of OHS

There are two potentially conflicting approaches to changing the occupational health and safety performance of managers and workers – cultural change or individual inducements. In some ways this reflects a societal dichotomy between the group and the individual, the big picture and the small, employers and workers, white-collar and blue collar, blame the system or blame the worker, and other combinations.

A colleague brought an article by Ross Gittins to this blog’s attention in which Gittins, an economics journalist, criticises key performance indicators and suggests looking at “intrinsic motivations”, based on the work of Jana Gallus. It seems we should be looking at awards rather than rewards. Gallus’s work provides a useful counterpoint or entry point to a recent book called Risky Rewards, written by Andrew Hopkins and Sarah Maslen. Continue reading “The dichotomy of OHS”

Everyone wants a quick fix – OHS is no different

One of the professional disciplines that has had the biggest impact on occupational health and safety (OHS) management in Australia has been sociology but that influence seems to be waning as it fails to compete with the managerial imperative of short-termism and the quick fix.

This demand for a quick fix is partly a result of the increased sensitivity to reputational damage of both the organisation and the executive. This can be seen by the increasing attention to apparent solutions to safety problems of the individual worker, for instance, resilience training which is primarily about the individual toughening up. Neuroplasticity has entered OHS by saying that the individual can reconfigure their brain to, somehow, work more safely. Of course, the ultimate short-term solution to most workplace problems has existed for years – sack the worker.

All of this denies the organisational influence on workers, managers and executives because organisational change is hard and it takes time, both are challenges that do not fit with modern expectations of business.

One of the clearest examples of the inability or unwillingness of executives to improve OHS through organisational change is the management of

Cry of frustration in Industrial Manslaughter Bill

Over the last few months some in Australia’s trade union movement have renewed calls for the introduction of industrial manslaughter laws in various jurisdictions. The issue has appeared both on television and online.

Curiously the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) seems to have dropped the “industrial manslaughter” terminology it has used in the past. In a 28 April 2015 media release, the ACTU stated:

““Strengthening OHS laws to make negligent companies and individual directors liable sends a clear message to employers that they must ensure people are safe at work.”

and

“Current laws need to be strengthened so that companies and company directors are liable for our safety at work.”

It seems that the charge has been left to the South Australian Greens Parliamentarian,

Category: ethics

Analysing safety leadership can be distracting

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Psychologically health workplaces

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Leadership or cowardice?

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Annual Reports need OHS engagement

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The dichotomy of OHS

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Everyone wants a quick fix – OHS is no different

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Cry of frustration in Industrial Manslaughter Bill

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