mental-health – Page 16 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

“Some of you may die, but it’s a sacrifice I am willing to make”

Recently at the Central Safety Group, I offered two business options to prevent and manage the risks of mental injury at work – Employ more people or Descope company expectations. This was glib, but I was trying to simplify the decisions that employers will face if they choose to meet their occupational health and safety (OHS) obligations. The reality of the decision-making process is challenging, but it seems to me that the core decisions are to increase the workforce to adequately and safely meet the needs of the company or project, or reduce the production volume or decrease the expectations of the client, and the related stress levels of the workers, to match the size of the workforce.

The actual decision is more complex, but this choice is fundamental to the prevention of harm and compliance with the OHS laws.

Getting the (political) balance right

One can never accuse politicians of deep or systems thinking on the issues and policies for which they are responsible. Victoria’s Minister for WorkSafe, Danny Pearson, spoke at a press conference on March 6, 2023, about the viability of the workers’ compensation systems, which he described as broken, during a substantial increase in claims for workplace mental injury. Premier Dan Andrews has spoken of this matter since and with a similar perspective – politics rather than occupational health and safety (OHS).

How this issue develops over the next month may determine who speaks for the government at the April 28 Workers Memorial event.

Hubris, thy name is HR

The Human Resources (HR) sector often feeds off itself, reinforcing what it has always done, rather than seriously looking at opportunities to improve from outside its own experience and discipline. Workplace mental health is a particular example.

Recently the Human Resources Director (HRD) website promoted a new well-being survey from AON with the headline:

“Want to boost company performance? Invest more in wellbeing – Higher wellbeing scores can enhance performance by up to 55%: Aon report”

My initial response was WTF?! But after giving up some of my identity data to the website and reading the AON Report. My surprise diminished as I realised the report was just another example of comforting a profession on a workplace issue about which it is losing control.

Differing perspectives on working hours

On March 8, 2023, Giuseppe Carabetta, Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney, wrote about how the current dispute between Politician Monique Ryan and her former Chief of Staff, Sally Rugg, could open the door to lots of legal action through the courts and the Fair Work Commission. Sadly occupational health and safety (OHS) does not feature, but let’s look at the industrial relations context first and consider what is meant by “reasonable”.

Awards Night speeches

The WorkSafe Victoria Awards Night for 2022 contained three main speeches:

Minister for WorkSafe – Danny Pearson
WorkSafe CEO – Colin Radford
Worksafe Chair – Bob Cameron

Pearson

Pearson’s speech contained a couple of elements that implied it was written by someone without a deep understanding or history of OHS in Victoria. He mentioned “Kaizen” which was a blast from the past, being associated with lots of Lean managements and Six Sigmas. These concepts are rarely heard of in OHS circles now, perhaps because the Kaizen focus in Australia was often on individual workers and efforts rather than systems of work. Pearson said:

Plenty of sparkle but little spark

The latest awards night for WorkSafe Victoria achieved its scope – present awards for people and organisations who do occupational health and safety (OHS) well. Some categories are for extraordinary effort, achievements or innovation, and winning any award from WorkSafe is important to the winners, but some were flat.

Silicosis campaign is about safety but is also about politics

The calls for banning engineered stone‘s importation are curious and likely to be acted on later this week.

Politicians, unions and some OHS associations have undertaken a risk assessment and determined that elimination is the most effective harm prevention strategy. Previous risk assessments of silicosis have been reported on in this blog for some time without banning the material. The risks have not changed even with increased inspection and enforcement. So what has changed? Politics.

Category: mental-health

“Some of you may die, but it’s a sacrifice I am willing to make”

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Getting the (political) balance right

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Hubris, thy name is HR

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Differing perspectives on working hours

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Plenty of sparkle but little spark

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Silicosis campaign is about safety but is also about politics

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Pearson

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