Banking Royal Commission should not limit our thinking about culture

Australia is to have a Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry.  What’s this to do with occupational health and safety (OHS)? Not a lot, at first blush.  OHS professionals and safety practitioners need to watch this Royal Commission because it could led to a fundamental reassessment of corporate culture. The OHS discipline is beginning to understand that it operates within that organisational, or corporate, culture; the same culture that will be examined over the next twelve to eighteen months.

SafetyAtWorkBlog has written repeatedly on safety culture and the potential OHS changes from investigating the corporate culture of banks.  An analysis of corporate culture inevitably includes discussions of due diligence, corporate governance, leadership, accountability and ethics – all elements that are critical to understanding and building safe systems of work. Continue reading “Banking Royal Commission should not limit our thinking about culture”

Heights, Standards and Safety

Engineering and design Standards have existed globally for a long time.  They have considerable authority, often provided through legislation, and underpin many of the safety devices and equipment used in workplaces.  But does compliance with Standards mean that something is safe?

The easy answer is no. A recent presentation to the Central Safety Group (CSG) by David Davis of the Working at Heights Association illustrated this gap between workplace safety compliance and compliance with Standards.

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2017 Year in Review creates anxiety and calls for action

Last week in Sydney and Melbourne law firm Clyde & Co conducted seminars reviewing 2017 through the workplace health and safety perspective.  Alena Titterton (pictured right) hosted the Melbourne event which did not follow the proposed topics, but it was friendly and informative, and covered a lot of ground.

This article focuses on the statistics presented in the Year in Review document and some commentary from Titterton.

(An exclusive conversation with Titterton is to be in the next episode of Safety At Work Talks podcast)

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Industry group expresses concerns about new safety Standard

An odd media statement was released by the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) on 23 October 2017 regarding the new international occupational health and safety (OHS) management system Standard ISO45001.  Several days later Standards Australia released a statement that supported and clarified ACCI’s position

ACCI states that

“….the draft standard is still several months away from being finalised”.

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Queensland’s Industrial Manslaughter push moves to Parliament this week

Queensland’s Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations, Grace Grace is continuing to apply political pressure on the opposition (conservative) party over the issue of industrial manslaughter laws, prior to their debate in State Parliament this week.

In a media statement released on October 6 2017, Grace states that

“We owe it to the victims and their loved ones to ensure Queensland has strong industrial manslaughter laws to protect people on the job.”

This is an appealing statement during Australia’s National Safe Work Month but the relationship between industrial manslaughter laws and safer workers is not as clear and direct as the political statements suggest. Continue reading “Queensland’s Industrial Manslaughter push moves to Parliament this week”

New International OHS Management Standard is not as revolutionary as claimed

Last week Optus’ Director of Work Health and Safety, Geoff Hoad, spoke enthusiastically of the new international occupational health and safety (OHS) Standard ISO45001 as a “gamechanger”.  It is a gamechanger as much as any management Standard can be, which is, in reality, as much as any company allows it to be. Hoad’s presentation included other comments, some that were not kind to the OHS profession.

Hoad was scathing about the current Australian OHS management Standard

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SafetyConnect conference connects

This week’s SAFETYconnect conference hosted by the NSCA Foundation in Sydney had a very good strike rate of interesting speakers on its first day.  Only one speaker missed the safety mark – it was as if they had been handed a marketing presentation instead of safety and, regardless of the safety audience, give it anyway.

This conference was notable for the way that the ‘safety differently’/Safety II movement has moved into mainstream safety management.  The most obvious example of this was a presentation by QantasLink.

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