Category: innovation

Australian Government moves on quad bike safety

Just before Christmas in 2009, Dr Yossi Berger speculated for an information network about the safety of quad bikes.  He called it QuadWatch.  Over two years later, on 13 July 2012, Australia’s Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten announced his own QuadWatch.

In the 2009 Croaky Blog, Dr Berger suggested

“a network could be called QuadWatch and it would become a clearing house for all needs related to quad bikes, particularly in relation to safety standards.  All training needs, advice about accessories, advice about the correct machine for a certain job or terrain could be handled by such regional cells.”

Shorten described the new QuadWatch as

“… a community based network bringing together farmers, community groups, emergency services and local government.

Shorten’s QuadWatch is broadly consultative but is a little different in its communication strategy.  Establishing websites in support of a political strategy have not had the greatest success in the last few years under the Federal Labor Government and QuadWatch is not the end point in the safety debate.

It is worth deconstructing the Minister’s media release a little.

Continue reading “Australian Government moves on quad bike safety”

WorkSafe Victoria tries humour in safety advertising

For the last few weeks WorkSafe Victoria has been running new injury prevention advertisements based on a game show theme of playing the odds on injuring a worker.  The curiosity of this campaign is that humour and a little bit of shame has been employed to communicate.

It is refreshing for an OHS regulator to use humour in the aim of improving workplace safety particularly as this attempt avoids the slapstick humour that has been tried in the past by several safety organisations.  Workplace injuries are not a laughing matter but a gentle humour can be used to prick the conscience of those who have safety obligations.

Conversations with OHS peers on these ads has shown a perplexity over these ads.  Those who have established a public face or a reputation in the safety field are unsure whether laughing or, at the least, being amused is appropriate.  There is a fine line between mockery and amusement so hesitation is understandable. Continue reading “WorkSafe Victoria tries humour in safety advertising”

“Do some good” sounds more effective than achieving “zero harm”

The April 2012 edition of the UK magazine Training Journal makes a statement that is so simple, safety professionals should be kicking themselves.  The safety profession is trying to change the measurement of safety from lag indicators to lead, from negatives to positives, from failures to successes and yet we continue to talk about zero harm.  In Training Journal, Stuart Walkley states that

“…we face a new challenge, not just to ‘do no harm’ but to ‘do some good’ in the workplace, to create a healthy working environment that supports and contributes to our wellbeing.”

“Do some good”.  I would rather be a Do Some Good Manager than a Zero Harm Manager.  Focussing on the safety positive is what I do as a safety adviser but saying that my job is to “do some good” makes me feel better about my job than if I was minimising the negative, which is what the zero harm descriptor does.

Also, “do some good” sits well with the new approach that safety professionals are supposed to have, having to blend the psychosocial hazards into our risk controls approach. Continue reading ““Do some good” sounds more effective than achieving “zero harm””

Award winner illustrates a potential new approach to small business OHS support

The most interesting winner at the Safe Work Australia was a small greengrocer, The Hub Fruit Bowl.  This family run business improved their occupational health and safety management system (OHSMS) with little more than a free “Small Business Safety Pack” from SafeWorkSA (no longer available on the SafeWorkSA website).  This is a remarkable contrast to the, presumably expensive, Dupont-based achievement of Australian construction company, Grocon.  The win also illustrates the continued importance of the need for free, or cheap, practical plain safety advice. (Why isn’t there a Dummies Guide to Workplace Safety?)

The Hub Fruit Bowl’s achievement could have far-reaching effects as the low-cost approach can be applied to thousands of small businesses in Australia.   The greengrocer has a healthy record of providing young people with their first jobs, jobs that include a solid understanding of workplace health and safety.  The Grocon experience is more corporate and very common where solutions are sought from outside one’s business.

The Hub Fruit Bowl’s win should encourage OHS regulators to reassess their small business OHS strategies.  Instead of funding OHS consultants to provide three or six hours of OHS advice, frequent encouragement and engagement with small business, structured round documented processes may be more effective.  SafeWorkSA does not mention the concept of “case managers” but applying this to harm and injury prevention strategies may have merit.  Providing sustained support and encouragement instead of a quick intense session should be seriously considered by OHS regulators.

It may also be useful to consider providing pro-bono safety services to small businesses, as a civic duty but also to freshen the experiences of safety professionals.

Kevin Jones

Australian OHS awards need reviewing now more than ever

The various government safety awards process in Australia needs a thorough coordinated review in order to maintain their relevance.  Earlier last year WorkSafe Victoria tried a new strategy to increase community participation in their awards process.  This involved monthly mini-awards and nominees calling on their friends and professional networks for support and votes.  It was worth a try but WorkSafe Victoria went it alone and it will be difficult to sustain this strategy without broader support, probably from the other States.

SafetyAtWorkBlog stated following last year’s national safety awards ceremony that change was required but no one took up the challenge.  The need for review was even more evident at this year’s Safe Work Australia Awards held last week.  The lacklustre atmosphere could have been partly due to an MC, Paul McDermott, who is more comfortable piercing the pretensions of institutions.  In these awards, it would have been rude to make fun of workplace safety.  McDermott understood this and could only make jokes of his own brushes with danger, such as having his scrotum pierced with a winklepinker. But it is more likely that the awards had more serious deficiencies. Continue reading “Australian OHS awards need reviewing now more than ever”

Video interviews with four safety professionals

Last week at the Safety In Action Trade Show I participated in a live web interview on safety.  The video of my interview is available below.  Many thanks to Digicast for making this and other OHS videos available.

Other video interviews are available with:

  • Dr Angelica Vecchio-Sadus- HSE Leader at CSIRO Process Science and Engineering.
  • Marilyn Hubner – Workplace Learning and Development Specialist at the National Safety Council of Australia
  • John Lacey, Video President IOSH & CEO Lincsafe

Kevin Jones

Evidence of the need to change how and why we work

Last week Professor Rod McClure of the Monash Injury Research Institute urged Australian safety professionals to look at the ecology of safety and injury prevention.  By using the term “ecology” outside of the colloquial, he was advocating that we search for a universal theory of injury prevention.  In short, he urged us to broaden our understanding of safety to embrace new perspectives.  It could also be argued that he wanted to break the safety profession out of its malaise and generate some social activism on injury prevention – a philosophical kick in the pants.

Before discussing the latest research Australia’s Barbara Pocock has undertaken, with her colleagues Natalie Skinner and Philippa Williams, the challenge of achieving some degree of balance between the two social activities of work and non-work can be indicated by a graph provided by Dick Bryan and Mike Rafferty in a recent DISSENT magazine article about financial risk.

In 2008 people in Australian households were working over 50 hours per week.  The reasons for this are of less relevance than the fact that Australian workers are well beyond the 40-hour work week, not including any travel time.  Work has a social cost as well as a social benefit and any discussion (debate?) over productivity, as is currently occurring in Australia, must also consider the social cost of this productivity.  The graph above is a symptom of the challenge of achieving a decent quality of life and a functional level of productivity – the challenge that Pocock, Skinner and Williams have undertaken. Continue reading “Evidence of the need to change how and why we work”

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