media – Page 16 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

Suicide and OHS media campaigns should achieve tangible outcomes

Don’t jump rock cliff at Sydney, Australia

The benefits of advertising are notoriously difficult to quantify unless there is a specific product being promoted. Advertising about occupational health and safety (OHS) is usually measured in the level of awareness of the viewers with questions such as

Are you aware of WorkSafe?

What does WorkSafe do?

When we mention WorkSafe to you, what do you think of?

But as with wellbeing initiatives, awareness does not always, some would say rarely, generate action; and action that affects real change.

Recently several Australian researchers looked at some of the existing studies around media campaigns on the prevention of

Safety Differently – The Movie reviewed

One of the best elements of Sidney Dekker’s new Safety Differently documentary is that he is only in it for a few of its thirty minutes. It is not that he has nothing to say but the expected audience for this documentary would already be familiar with Dekker’s take on Safety Differently.

This documentary provides what has been needed for the Safety Differently movement for some time – case studies, trials and experiments. It was always possible to understand the theory but it was difficult to see how the theory would be implemented. Partly this was because the implication was that Safety II concepts replaced Safety I. Rather Safety Differently is a transition from I to II and over a considerable time.

This documentary, which is free to view and released on October 10, 2017. includes three stories – one each from oil & gas, health care and retail supermarkets.

Near Kill – Jim Ward speaks

Jim Ward is hardly known outside the Australian trade union movement but many people over the age of thirty, or in the occupational health and safety (OHS) profession, may remember the person Esso blamed for the Esso Longford explosion in 1998. Just after the nineteenth anniversary of the incident that killed two workers and injured eight other, SafetyAtWorkBlog interviewed Ward about the incident but, more significantly, also about how that incident changed his world view.

For some time now Jim Ward has been the National OHS Director for the Australian Workers’ Union. Here is a long interview with Ward that provides a useful perspective on OHS while Australia conducts its National Safe Work Month.

[Note: any links in the text have been applied by SafetyAtWorkBlog]

SAWB: Jim, what happened at Longford, and what did it mean for you.

JW: So, on 25 September 1998, I got up out of bed and went to work, just as I’d done for the previous 18 years of my working life, at the Esso gas plant facility at Longford in Victoria.

There was nothing unforeseen or untoward about that particular day. But due to, as one judge elegantly described it, “a confluence of events”, it turned out to be the most significant day of my life.

Was it worth going to the World Congress on Safety and Health?

I travelled to the 21st World Congress on Safety and Health in Singapore as a delegate and a media representative from my home in Australia. Was it worth attending? Yes and no. That may seem a weak answer but I attended in two capacities with two purposes – as an occupational health and safety (OHS) professional and an independent media representative. Both were satisfied a little bit and both could have been better. Here’s a personal report on my professional and media experiences at the World Congress.

Configuring the safety profession for the future

In support of this year’s election of new Board members to the Safety Institute of Australia, the Safety on Tap podcast has granted each nominee ten minutes to introduce themselves. Some of these episodes raised the following points of interest:

The need to change the demographics of the occupational health and safety (OHS) profession to reflect society.
Any organisation that is undergoing change must acknowledge that even though it may be replacing “old school” thinking and structures, sustainable progress is best achieved by accepting the future is built by “standing on the shoulders of giants”.
Just because an organisation or profession has been structured one way in the past does not mean that structure remains applicable for the future.

Continue reading “Configuring the safety profession for the future”

Psychology, Leadership and Jonathan Lincolne

Episode 47 of Andrew Barrett’s Safety On Tap podcast consisted of an interview with Jonathan Lincolne of Pockets of Brilliance. Several comments are of note.

Psychology

Around the 47 minute mark, Lincolne is asked about the level of psychological knowledge that the occupational health and safety (OHS) professionals should possess. Lincolne refreshingly describes himself as a skeptic about a lot of the recent psychological discussion, particularly the promotion of neuroscience.

WorkSafe responds on Strategy 2030

Last week SafetyAtWorkBlog wrote about the release of a WorkSafe Victoria Strategy 2030 discussion paper. WorkSafe has responded to a series of questions that were clear and straightforward. The response is largely unhelpful.

“The discussion paper seeks feedback on WorkSafe’s next long term strategy which will support an even greater focus on injury prevention, the provision of tailored services and empathetic support to every injured worker and the transformation of WorkSafe into a technologically agile organisation.

The discussion paper has been promoted with a series of community seminars across the state, shared on social media, and sent to our employees and key stakeholders to promote and encourage feedback among their networks.

Workplace safety affects every Victorian which is why we are seeking the views of employers, workers and the broader community.

A summary of the feedback will be made available on the WorkSafe website before the end of the year.”

The questions asked by SafetyAtWorkBlog are listed below.

Category: media

Suicide and OHS media campaigns should achieve tangible outcomes

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Was it worth going to the World Congress on Safety and Health?

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Psychology, Leadership and Jonathan Lincolne

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