2025 has started with a flurry of blog activity and more than a flurry of political change in the United States. It is easy to become distracted by those changes, but a refocus on local issues, new thoughts, perspectives, and new books may generate a balance of sanity. Here is a taste of one book that I have not had time to read entirely but that has potential.
Charles Handy died in December 2024. He was a prominent author on organisational behaviour and business management and was recognised as a major thinker. It is fair to describe him as a pre-Internet influencer. His ideas never went away, but they faded under the neoliberal onslaught. With the decline of that ideology, Handy’s approach to organisational culture deserves a reread.
Continue reading “Handy and organisational culture”The Australian Financial Review conducts many conferences, business summits and CEO surveys to provide publishable content (and as a marketing strategy). Over the last month, several articles and features have been produced from its “Chanticleer CEO Survey”; one is called “Red tape standing between business and Australia’s policy challenges” (hard copy title, paywalled). I scanned the CEOs’ comments for relevance to occupational health and safety (OHS) and harm prevention.
Occupational health and safety has traditionally been considered under the category of industrial, or industrial relations, but largely this is due to the major advocates of OHS being the trade union movement. So OHS seems to fit with workers’ rights under the issues of wages and conditions, but really OHS is a social law.
According to one definition social law is:
“…any law, rule or regulation (including international treaty obligations) applicable in any jurisdiction concerning
– labour,
– social security,
– the regulation of industrial relations (between government, employers and employees),
– the protection of occupational, as well as public, health and safety,
– the regulation of public participation,
– the protection and regulation of ownership of land rights (both formal and traditional), immovable goods and intellectual and cultural property rights,
– the protection and empowerment of indigenous peoples or ethnic groups,
– the protection, restoration and promotion of cultural heritage, and
– all other laws, rules and regulations providing for the protection of employees and citizens.”
OHS meets several elements of this definition.
Starting January 1, 2025, Australia will have new laws and penalties for intentional wage theft beginning January 1, 2025. The usual business lobby groups are bleating about the unfair imposition of costs and time on their members. But what about the significant impact on workers’ health, safety and dignity?
Occupational health and safety (OHS) continues to have a credibility problem and a poor social profile. Some of this is due to OHS peddling nonsense, but probably no more than any other discipline. Some of it is due to employers and other corporate leaders using OHS as camouflage for inaction or as a distraction from a different workplace issue. Some of it is due to ignorance.
It is up to all of us to strengthen the discipline’s credibility. To help with this, here are three words commonly used by leaders that we need to question and challenge whenever they are used.
Continue reading “Red flags for OHS misunderstandings”Effectiveness is critical in assessing one’s occupational health and safety (OHS) management system. One must be sure that the system works and to repair or improve that system when a deficiency is identified. We must create and maintain a safe system of work, and we must trust it and respect it.
So why do we feel the need to remind our colleagues of their OHS obligations, which the system has already educated them about? Indeed, they are grown-ups who know what they need to do and appreciate the importance of their own safety and the safety of their teams. Part of growing up is learning from one’s mistakes by experiencing the consequences of one’s decisions and actions. A large part of OHS management is keeping people from harm and recognising and accepting that people are integral to the management system.
