stress – Page 10 – 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.

Violence against teachers

Unless you are a teacher, it is difficult to comprehend the extent of stress and pressure teachers can face at school. A recent court case in Queensland involving an appeal against a decision by the Regulator not to accept a workers’ compensation claim provides some insight into the teacher’s lot.

The case, Roberts v Workers’ Compensation Regulator [2023] QIRC 76 (6 March 2023), was won by Ms Karen Roberts as the Commissioner decided that Roberts’ experiences at work, over time, were the major contributor to her post-traumatic stress disorder. There are statements in this decision that the school’s management practices did not worsen her experiences, and there are arguments over the degree of influence of other factors, but there is no occupational health and safety (OHS) perspective here. Even though it is not an OHS prosecution, there is an important OHS context.

OHS tidbits from the latest Productivity Commission Report

On March 17 2023, the Australian government released the Productivity Commission’s latest 5-year Productivity Inquiry report. At well over a thousand pages, few people are going to read it to the level it deserves. Nor will I, but I have dipped into it and found a couple of important comments that relate directly to the management of occupational health and safety (OHS).

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.

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”.

When empathy is also harmful

One of the favoured characteristics of a successful corporate leader is empathy for those under one’s duty of care. The logic is, if you care about your workers, you will look after them and prevent them from harm. But in some jobs, the empathy needed to do the job well also exposes workers to psychosocial harm. This issue of vicarious trauma is an element of our increased attention to workplace mental health and is receiving global attention.

Excellent (and free) Australian guide on psychosocially healthy workplaces

Readers have shown considerable interest in the EU-OSHA e-guide for psychosocial health at work. A similarly formatted document has been released by Workplace Health and Safety Queensland in support of the new “Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work Code of Practice 2022“. The Mentally Healthy Workplaces Toolkit is an interactive PDF slightly more sophisticated than the EU document through its extensive use of hyperlinks to external information sources.

Category: stress

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

Like this:

Violence against teachers

Like this:

OHS tidbits from the latest Productivity Commission Report

Like this:

Getting the (political) balance right

Like this:

Differing perspectives on working hours

Like this:

When empathy is also harmful

Like this:

Excellent (and free) Australian guide on psychosocially healthy workplaces

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: