health – Page 16 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

Tough questions about psychosocial safety and health

Over the next week or so, SafetyAtWorkBlog will be focusing on the issue of psychosocial hazards and psychological risks at work, as we cover the Psych Health and Safety Conference in Sydney. These risks and hazards are the most pressing topic in occupational health and safety (OHS) at the moment, with an increased demand for solutions from workers and the community, as well as heightened expectations for regulatory compliance. I apologise for this intense focus, but I welcome your comments and participation.

I will start by posing this question:

“The Australian approaches to psychosocial hazards and psychological safety in Human Resources and Work Health and Safety have been siloed in the past. Are the approaches getting closer? Is there more cooperation between the two or are the two disciplines’ aims still too different?”

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From Work to Incident to Harm to Hurt to Repair to Work

I. David Daniels has gained prominence in Australia through his association with FlourishDx and his appearances at the Psych Health and Safety conferences. Recently, he has published a book on psychosocial hazards and risks. All of this collateral adds authority to his thoughts, but he remains a work in progress for me, a work that I am starting to value and enjoy. Recently, in one of his LinkedIn conversations, he seemed to be implying a new and fresh timeline of workplace mental health, which got me thinking about “harm”, “injury”, “hurt, “damage”, and “trauma”. Daniels wrote:

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First steps in preventing psychological harm at work may be the hardest

Occupational health and safety (OHS) podcasts are increasingly common. They are reaching peak-podcast just as peak-blog may have done a few years ago, BUT the increased attention to workplace psychological health continues to create more. A new, short, informative, and useful one is “Inside Safety” with lawyers Steve Bell and Nerida Jessup.

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Self-Reported Stress or Diagnosed Distress? New Mental Health White Paper Sparks Debate

On June 3 2025, workers’ compensation insurer EML released its white paper on mental health in Australian workplaces. The paper is full of recent data on worker perceptions of psychological health; however, its significance is limited by relying on self-reported survey data. More interesting information came from the Question and Answer panel session at the report’s Melbourne launch.

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Stakeholder vs. Shareholder: The Capitalism Clash Shaping Safer Workplaces

Elements of Andrew Hopkins’ latest book have been spinning in my head for a couple of weeks as they echo my thoughts on occupational health and safety (OHS) over the last few years. I cannot shake his discussion of stakeholder capitalism and shareholder capitalism. These two elements of business management are crucial to our understanding of OHS and how we should proceed, particularly in relation to psychological health.

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Work-from-Home Wins: Productivity Holds, Mental Health Glows, but Bosses Still Crave the Office Status Quo

“WFH is probably good for productivity” was a headline in the Australian Financial Review (AFR) of May 29 2025. The online version (paywalled) added “if it’s part-time”. The Productivity Commission‘s examination of the COVID-19 pandemic in its “before-and-after” report presents some new perspectives on occupational health and safety (OHS) aspects of working from home.

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There is no excuse for ignoring pandemic preparation

No one wants to experience another pandemic, yet our governments seem uninterested in preparing for the next inevitable one. Australia was relatively lucky in its death rates, but the COVID-19 pandemic and the government-imposed lockdowns have changed some citizens mentally and philosophically. Vaccines arrived comparatively quickly, an amazing story in itself, reducing the emphasis on quarantine as an essential (engineering) control.

In 2021, Geoff Manuagh and Nicola Twilley wrote about the history and future of quarantine in a book called “Until Proven Safe“. The book is a useful reminder of our responses to global pandemics and the overlap of occupational and public health.

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