Leadership – Page 38 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

OHS and Marcus Cattani

Marcus Cattani at the cricket

Dr Marcus Cattani, is a Senior Lecturer in Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) within the School of Medical and Health Sciences at Edith Cowan University and a leading Australian OHS consultant. SafetyAtWorkBlog endeavoured to glimpse the person behind the qualifications by asking Dr Cattani some safety-related questions and he was kind enough to respond.

What attracted you to looking at workplace health and safety? Did you fall into it or always have an interest?

I was lucky enough to find out about WHS when I was around 20 years old, during my environmental science based college course. At that time, in the late 1980’s the trend for people finishing my course was to work in asbestos management or in Council environmental teams, neither of which really excited me!

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New communications on workplace safety

Jen Jackson is a communications adviser who has come to prominence in the occupational health and safety (OHS) sector in Australia over the last 12 months for lots of reasons. She is young, female and talks clearly and sensible – all elements that many do not associate with OHS. Jackson is always worth listening to…

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The fashion of safety culture

In 2016, Professor Andrew Hopkins urged occupational health and safety (OHS) professionals to abandon safety culture. In the December 2016 edition of OHS Professional magazine ($), he writes further about this position.

Several of Hopkins’ statements make the reader stop, sit up and reflect. He writes

“What people do is something company leadership can indeed control, while what people think is neither here nor there“(page 28 – emphasis added).

POW!, there goes a lot of the safety training that is provided.

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CEO-speak and safety culture – losing track of what matters most

The BP Deepwater Horizon disaster has faded to become another safety leadership failure to be discussed in the OHS and risk management courses but some new research ($ paywall) in Critical Perspectives on Accounting provides a fresh perspective on BP’s safety culture and leadership prior to the major disaster by deconstructing the speeches of the the then-CEO, Tony Hayward.

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SafetyAtWorkBlog’s top two articles for 2016

As 2016 comes to a close, I have dipped into the statistics and found the two SafetyAtWorkBlog articles that had the highest readership in 2016 were articles discussing the thoughts of Michael Tooma and Andrew Hopkins. Both of the articles were challenging – one of the existence or relevance of safety culture and the other about how occupational health and safety (OHS) is desperate for a change and struggling to start that change.

The statistics should not be surprising as both Tooma and Hopkins have a high recognition rate in the Australian OHS field and both have and international context – Hopkins through his analysis of industrial disasters and Tooma through his “safety differently” world tour. Continue reading “SafetyAtWorkBlog’s top two articles for 2016”

Firefighting mental health report leaked

The Herald-Sun newspaper has released the final report into the mental health and suicide rate of Victorian metropolitan firefighters.

The report, authored by Dr Peter Cotton, found that the issues uncovered in the review of firefighters in the Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB) are not dissimilar from the findings of other inquiries into emergency service organisations like the police or the ambulance service.

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Work-related suicides in another militarily-structured organisation

Australia’s emergency services have had several reviews into accusations of workplace bullying, harassment, mental health or suicides. Melbourne’s Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB) is the latest to undergo this type of review but the United Firefighters Union (UFU) is not happy about the release of the final report, which was due out today. If the final report is consistent, a dysfunctional safety culture will be found.

According to a report in the ABC news website, the review was

“…headed by clinical psychologist Dr Peter Cotton, who wrote a similar report for Victoria Police.” [link added]

SafetyAtWorkBlog readers may recall that an earlier article on psychologically healthy workplaces included this mention of Dr Cotton

“[Dr Chris] Stevens is not blind to the shortcomings of some of the trends in the area of psychologically healthy workplaces. He agreed that the modern workplaces and workers are subject to over-diagnosis of mental health issues and paraphrased some of the work of Dr Peter Cotton who estimated around 30% of workers compensation claims for psychological injury relate to low morale and not psychiatric diagnosis.”

Continue reading “Work-related suicides in another militarily-structured organisation”

Category: Leadership

OHS and Marcus Cattani

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New communications on workplace safety

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SafetyAtWorkBlog’s top two articles for 2016

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Firefighting mental health report leaked

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Work-related suicides in another militarily-structured organisation

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