Category: Leadership

Engineered stone is unsafe at any level

Safe Work Australia has recommended:

“a prohibition on the use of all engineered stone, irrespective of crystalline silica content, to protect the health and safety of workers.”

So that should be it. No more engineered stone products for use in Australia. Apparently, that decision is difficult to make even though the top occupational health and safety (OHS) advisory body in Australia recommends prohibition. OHS has always had an uncomfortable mix of morality, law and politics. Engineered stone and its inherent silicosis risks are a good illustration of the tensions between these three elements.

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Get rid of dinosaur thinking on workplace mental health

Victoria’s coronial services has been found guilty of breaching its occupational health and safety (OHS) obligations after one of its employees died by suicide, identifying work issues as a major factor in her death. WorkSafe Victoria has released the best source of information on this case. Most of the mainstream media is relying on a newswire report,which is based on WorkSafe’s information.

Significantly none of the prevention strategies identified by WorkSafe are included in the media reports even though this is perhaps the most vital information for preventing recurrences.

This article looks at the advice offered by WorkSafe Victoria in its media release on what actions it believes could prevent the occupational factors that resulted in this suicide from emerging, or not being addressed, in your workplaces.

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Plain speaking on mental health v nuance

Plain speaking is one of the greatest challenges of any profession. Many professionals struggle to communicate their excellent work and knowledge which has created the moves for Research-To-Practice and specialised communicators (as opposed to public relations advisers). Human Resources (HR) and Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) need communications specialists, or perhaps just interpreters, if a recent article on workers compensation and mental health is anything to go by.

If we are going to achieve a successful and effective change on workplace mental health, we need to start to understand each other.

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UK workplace survey shows the huge misunderstanding on preventing psychosocial harm

The Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD) has released an important survey of their members about health and wellbeing at work. Amongst many of the findings is that “Stress continues to be one of the main causes of absence” and that “Heavy workloads remain by far the most common cause of stress-related absence…” So how are CIPD members reducing the heavy workloads? They’re not. 78% of respondents are using Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) to “identify and reduce stress”. Options like hiring additional staff or reducing the workload do not even chart. OMG!

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Is it time to ditch the Safety Moment?

It’s National Safe Work Month in Australia this October. This year’s theme is SafeTea** emphasising the importance of involving everyone in work health and safety (WHS) discussions by encouraging workplaces to have a safety chat over a cup of tea. This started me thinking about safety conversations. Is the Safety Moment mentioned at the start of every meeting ritual impactful, engaging, behaviour changing or is just eroding safety credibility?

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OHS context in many mainstream news stories, if you look

Occupational health and safety (OHS) is rarely reported on in the mainstream newspapers but every week OHS is there, adding a contect to a scandal or subtext to a public health risk. Last weekend was no different. The Guardian of September 16, 2023 reported on a review of personal relationships by BP, a prison escape, deaths from air pollution, a more relaxed approach to work, shoplifting and customer aggression, and more.

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