Shortly after Christmas 2022, the Australian Associated Press (AAP) released an article about the financial status of the Victorian Workcover Authority. The article was about a 2020 review of the financial sustainability of the workers’ compensation scheme by insurance and actuarial firm, Finity. This was built upon in a couple of mainstream newspapers.
This end-of-year list is more complex than one of unread books because of the qualitative elements. In writing this article, off-the-cuff, I thought of the three or four books that I could readily remember reading in 2022; those that stuck in my mind for several reasons.
The book that most readily comes to mind from 2022 is the Jessie Singer book “There are no Accidents“. Singer makes the same point as many occupational health and safety (OHS) people have – accidents are not an “act of God”. There is always a cause IF we choose to look. There is always a social, corporate, economic of ethical environment that either encourages or fails to discourage decisions that can lead to harm.
Continue reading “Notable books on safety and work”I always separate the books I have yet to read from those I have read, or else I lose track and can miss important books. Below is a list of those books in the hope that subscribers could tell me which they found to be useful and important if they have read any of them.
I have provided links to the books, usually publishers’ pages or reviews if you are interested, and check for special offers. Not all the books are new but new to me.
The earlier Chris Smith article mentioned the earlier incidents that, given his recidivism, the control measures implemented failed or were inadequate. If these incidents had involved occupational health and safety (OHS) concepts and investigations, the latest incident may never have occurred.
OHS is big on investigations and contributory factors but usually after an incident. OHS tends to identify faults and failures after the event. However, this has become the norm because OHS and employers are less able or interested in investigating incidents with lesser consequences or what OHS call Near Misses. Chris Smith had no near misses, each of the earlier “misbehaviours’ were incidents that seem not to have been investigated to the standard or depth intended in OHS.
SkyNews and radio host, Chris Smith, has been dismissed due to inappropriate behaviour at a company Christmas party. This type of behaviour has been on the occupational health and safety (OHS) and Industrial Relations radar for a long, long time. Recently the psychological impacts of this type of behaviour have come to the fore, placing the issue clearly in the OHS realm.
It is useful to look at the Chris Smith saga through the “new” OHS perspective.
The end-of-year reviews are starting to emerge from Australia’s law firms. The most recent release is from Maddocks, who have released several short reports on occupational health and safety (OHS) hazards and suggested controls for employers to apply. So this is a year-in-review for 2022, but it is also a forecast of what needs to be changed in 2023.
In an article on burnout in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age on December 10 2022 (paywalled), there was a peculiar quote and some paraphrasing of Sarah McCann, chief executive of the Australian Human Resources Institute (AHRI), indicating the size of the challenges facing human resources professionals in preventing psychosocial harm in Australian workplaces.
The article is a peculiar one. It states that burnout has been categorised as an occupational risk by the World Health Organisation but then reports on psychological support organisations who are applying the concept outside of work activities. The justification for this is that the work undertaken at home or in caring for a family is unpaid work but still work, so the occupational definition applies. That’s a stretch, but it’s possible.
