Category: psychiatric

The productivity debate in Australia misses the opportunities presented by wellbeing

At the moment Australian business is campaigning on the need to increase productivity rates in Australian workplaces.  It, with the recent support of some State governments and ideological colleagues, is seeking to achieve this by weakening the recent changes to the industrial relations structure encapsulated in the Fair Work Act.  Fair Work Australia, trade unions and industry associations are primarily focussed on the industrial relations elements of this ideological fight over productivity.
Evidence of the potential productivity and economic benefits of improved occupational health and safety has been missing in the debate yet it is this linkage that Dame Carol Black has been talking about recently in Australia.  It seems there is a keen audience for her perspective in Australia as she will be visiting the country four times in 2012.
At a recent OHS conference in Melbourne one speaker said some OHS positions in the United States are being renamed Occupational Health Productivity in recognition of the importance of wellbeing  in the OHS roles.  Renaming “wellbeing” as “productivity” provides a different context to OHS activities and should better gain senior executive attention as it would be easier to see how this activity fits with traditional operational thinking. Continue reading “The productivity debate in Australia misses the opportunities presented by wellbeing”

Executive Director says WorkSafe has been reactive on workplace mental health

Ian Forsyth, Health and Safety Executive Director, for WorkSafe Victoria spoke at a breakfast seminar on 7 February 2012.  As a report on what WorkSafe has been doing and what they plan to do in 2012, it was reasonable but there were several issues that raised eyebrows or confused some in the audience.

Workplace Bullying

Ian Forsyth spent some time speaking about the importance of workplace bullying, repeatedly stressing that most calls to WorkSafe about bullying do not fit the definition that would allow WorkSafe to act.  No mention was made of the divergent views on workplace bullying coming through the public comment phase of the draft national code on workplace bullying over the last few months.

Several times Forsyth stressed that there were other avenues for action or appeal on matters that do not fit the WorkSafe definition, such as the Fair Work Ombudsman and other authorities.  This is the reality but the comments provide no real solution to handling the thousands of calls WorkSafe receives on workplace bullying each year.   Continue reading “Executive Director says WorkSafe has been reactive on workplace mental health”

What makes a good job? What makes a safe job?

Dame Carol Black

The High Risk OHS Summit 2012 (why it’s high risk, no one seems to know) started with a bang with a detailed presentation from Dame Carol Black, a major instigator of work health reforms in the United Kingdom.  Dame Black was able to provide several case studies and some data that provided a fresh perspective on what work and health and safety means to the British workers.  For instance, she stated that of those employed in the UK, 26% are working with a health condition or disability. Black also said that 2.4% are off sick at any one time

Black also adds the personal to her presentations and admitted that she had not been aware of what makes “a good job” until beginning her review over five years ago. It is a terrific question to ask one’s self and colleagues.  What makes a good job?

David Gregory of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry also spoke at the conference and, as usually, was very cautious in what he said and how he said it. Continue reading “What makes a good job? What makes a safe job?”

Disagreement on workplace bullying strategy increases in Australia

According to The Australian newspaper on 5 January 2012 the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) is extremely critical of Safe Work Australia’s draft Code of Practice on Workplace Bullying. The ACTU has said that the draft code has a “fundamental flaw”

“… the failure to address workplace bullying in the same framework as any other workplace hazard/risk.”

This is a significant challenge but without access to the ACTU submission on the draft code it is difficult to determine the exact context of this fundamental flaw.

Of more concern is the apparent move by the ACTU, according to The Australian, to have single instances of inappropriate behavior covered by the workplace bullying code. This is contrary to the bullying concept that only repeated instances of abuse should be considered bullying.

Regardless of this challenge to established definitions, it is very hard to see how such a situation could be enforced by either OHS representatives or OHS regulators. The regulators have struggled for years with the existing definition and could have no effective role in workplaces if the unions’ wishes were successful. Continue reading “Disagreement on workplace bullying strategy increases in Australia”

Lawyer says OHS harmonisation has become a shambles

The 28 December 2011 edition of the Australian Financial Review (AFR) (not available online) quotes Australian labour lawyer, Michael Tooma, talking about the harmonisation of workplace safety laws:

“It’s descended into a farce, a shambles – only four jurisdictions are ready for the laws.”

This seems supported by the words of the recently-appointed Workplace Relations Minister, Bill Shorten, who says that the new Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) laws will cover 58% of the workforce. This also equates to 42% NOT being covered – hardly a success for harmony.

Victoria’s WorkCover Minister, Gordon Rich-Phillips, continues to miss the point of national harmonisation by continuing to argue against harmonisation with parochialism. He says that the new laws are very likely to increase the regulatory and cost burden without acknowledging that Victoria has many prominent businesses who operate nationally and will incur increased compliance costs due to his delay in the implementation of the harmonised laws.

The AFR article implies that a major reason for objection is that senior executives, the ridiculously named “C-suite”, will face increased accountability for decisions that affect worker safety. Perhaps, but this increase has been coming for some time and should have been anticipated by the C-suite.

The article also implies that hesitation over these laws comes from the increased accountability of senior public servants and departmental heads. Tooma acknowledges this change:

“To date, heads of departments in the public service have never been able to be held criminally liable under federal laws.”

The public service is going to be a fierce battleground considering that psychosocial issues are so prevalent in this sector. It will be fascinating (and sad) to watch senior executives in government departments being prosecuted under OHS laws for workplace bullying, excessive workloads and the generation of stress. (The size of the challenge may be seen by recent bullying issues in the Australian emergency services, WorkSafe Victoria and WorkCover NSW)

The AFR has been one of the very few newspapers reporting on OHS harmonisation but, not surprising given its specialized readership, it has focused on the business costs of implementation. Rarely has it discussed the positive benefits to safety management or the potential increase in worker safety. Perhaps there are none.

There is little safety innovation in the new laws. If OHS is about preventing harm, these laws are no improvement on the previous.

But then safety has rarely come from laws but from how people react to, or apply, the laws. The debate on harmonisation has been missing the voice of the safety profession in Australia but perhaps that’s because there is nothing new to say. Perhaps the management of safety will not have any fundamental change. It may be that the only change is that the CEOs begin to listen to their OHS advisers. Let’s hope that is enough.

Kevin Jones

Workplace Bullying is a significant challenge even if the reality is smaller than expected

An article in the Weekend Australian newspaper and magazine (not available fully online) provides some statistics that raise serious questions about the level of bullying in workplaces in Australia, with particular focus on Victoria.  Of the 2,080 complaints lodged with WorkSafe Victoria in 2010-11

“only eight were deemed serious enough to warrant possible prosecution.”

Yet the OHS regulator received 7,050 inquiries about bullying.  There is clearly a problem in Victorian workplaces but it is not always bullying, as defined under OHS law.  Something else is happening and it has been happening for some time.

As reported previously in SafetyAtWorkBlog, the issue of workplace relationships is broader than can be handled by one regulator under one law.  There are human rights issues, mental health issues, harassment  and potential suicides – a range of social issues that should have taken the prevention of “workplace bullying” out of the workplace sometime ago.

The newspaper article, by Richard Guilliatt, draws on several significant cases of proven workplace bullying beyond the more familiar case of Brodie Panlock.  Christine Hodder’s suicide in 2005 following bullying in the New South Wales Ambulance Service generated a review of the organisation that found systemic bullying.  Sixteen year old Alex Meikle committed suicide in 2008 after many workplace “pranks” that included being set on fire. Continue reading “Workplace Bullying is a significant challenge even if the reality is smaller than expected”

Work-related suicide gains some fresh media recognition

On 4 November 2011, Victoria’s 7.30 program broadcast a heart-rending story about the suicide of a woman who, her mother believes, took this action after suffering chronic pain due a work-related incident and being given insufficient support from her employer and workers’ compensation bodies.  The story of Rebecca Wallis (spelling uncertain) apparently generated sufficient communication to the Australian Broadcast Corporation for 7.30 to undertake a follow-up and more broad look at the relationship between workers compensation and suicide.

One of the people interviewed in the 11 November 2011 program was John Bottomley of the Creative Ministries Network.  Bottomley has published several research reports on work-related deaths and suicides.  The figures he mentions in the report, that around 30% of the work-related suicides identified in his research had a “work injury or work-related mental illness” as a contributory factor, are included in the online publication from 2002, “Work Factors in Suicide“.  What is not mentioned is another statistic in his report:

“Nine people (8%) were on workers’ compensation when they committed suicide.” (page iii) Continue reading “Work-related suicide gains some fresh media recognition”

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