A new report on sexual harassment at work by Ourwatch has been reported on by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). The report says:
“…. found 40 per cent of workplace leaders surveyed were unaware of their new legal obligations to prevent workplace sexual harassment.”
Given that the core legislative obligation to prevent sexual harassment is over 40 years old, perhaps better questions could have been asked.
Prominent investigative journalist, Matt Peacock, has died from pancreative cancer. Few of us are lucky enough to save people’s lives, some of us change the world. Matt did both. He was never an occupational health and safety (OHS) specialist but his impact on the world of work, especially in Australia was profound and, probably, unmatched.
In 2019, I was helping the (then) Safety Institute of Australia with its conferences. I approached Matt to speak at the 2019 national conference dinner in Sydney, hoping he would be provocative. (Here is an article from that time) He shocked many in the audience when saying:
“..my message tonight is that if you were all doing your jobs properly, then I wouldn’t have had anything to report on in the first place.”
He did not let up on his challenging criticism that night. Below is the full transcript of his presentation, available for the first time.
Psychological injuries that happen at work or are caused by work may need to be notified to occupational health and safety (OHS) regulators in some Australian jurisdictions. Recently, an organisation associated with prominent Australian businessman Andrew Forrest underwent the notification experience and received an improvement notice.
I am not immune to the worries and potential of using Artificial intelligence (AI) tools in my occupational health and safety (OHS) work and writings. As with millions of others, my relationship is a work in progress.
I have long used the transcription software Otter.ai to transcribe short interviews. It remains less accurate than human transcription, but it remains useful. One of its new AI tools is that it can analyse all of the conversations recorded through Otter.ai or uploaded to it for transcribing. I have years of recordings at OHS conferences, seminars, webinars, and interviews, so I asked this question:
“Why does the Human Resources profession struggle with preventing psychological and psychosocial harm?”
This was its response:
Reasonably practicable control measures are most often determined by the courts during a prosecution. Every other determination of reasonably practicable in occupational health and safety (OHS) compliance is an educated guess by employers. However, this does not always have to be the case, as a short excerpt from the Annual Report of New Zealand’s Ombudsman illustrates.
Pages 52 and 53 summarise a complaint made to the Chief Ombudsman questioning WorkSafeNZ’s handling of an investigation into a:
Psychosocial hazards are gaining attention online, but the pace of change remains sloth-like. Two recent online events provide good, basic occupational health and safety (OHS) and organisational psychology information and some insight into the slow pace.
Australia’s news media is reporting a shocking report about the workplace culture of parts of the Nine Entertainment organisation – bullying, sexual harassment, abuse of power – all the elements of organisational culture that can be found in any company if one scratches the surface. Scratching is one of the aims of the occupational health and safety (OHS) discipline – investigating the causes of harm at the source.
