Category: psychosocial

Two ABC radio broadcasts on OHS

Dolly Parton sang about working 9 to 5, asked “what a way to make a living” and asserted that it would drive you crazy if you let it.  Many workers would look on a shift of only 9 to 5 as a luxury.  ABC Radio in Brisbane played this song as an introduction to a series of radio interviews about workplace safety in which myself and Professor Niki Ellis participated on 9 May 2016.

Curiously the interview, part of their The Juggle series, occurs in the Drive time slot of 4pm to 6pm but the discussion was almost all about occupational health and safety  (OHS) in the office environment.  If 9 to 5 still exists anywhere, the audience for office safety information was busy.  It would have been interesting to talk about OHS and work vehicles. Continue reading “Two ABC radio broadcasts on OHS”

Could safety by algorithms be next?

It seems to be increasingly important for occupational health and safety (OHS) to focus on the human and the humanity of the worker but this seems out of touch with the world of Human Resources (HR) and recruitment that is increasingly being dominated by impersonal algorithms.  Recently BBC’s Global Business program looked at Recruitment By Algorithm.

According to Global Business, recruitment assesses the “fit” of a job applicant through assessments undertaken by computer programs and algorithms.  This is occurring at the same time as OHS professionals are increasingly advocating the importance of a “safety culture” even though safety culture is difficult to define, and some deny it exists.  There seems to be an inherent conflict in the process of recruiting safe workers. Continue reading “Could safety by algorithms be next?”

Gender, buzzwords and safety/wellness knowledge

On 30 March 2016, Melbourne hosted a Workplace Wellness conference organised by Informa. (SafetyAtWorkBlog attended as a guest.) The reason for attending was to see how occupational health and safety (OHS) is growing, or needs to grow, to accommodate workplace wellness issues and how the wellness sector looks on OHS. Continue reading “Gender, buzzwords and safety/wellness knowledge”

Suicide Prevention Forum and Mental Health First Aid for workers

In March 2016, the Australian Bureau of Statistics released its latest figures into the causes of death. A lot of media attention was given to the figures showing an increase in the suicide rate.  It found that

“Among those aged 15 to 44, the leading causes of death were Intentional self-harm (suicide)…”

Dr Claire Kelly, Manager, Youth Programs, Mental Health First Aid Australia, talking at the Suicide Prevention Forum 2016
Dr Claire Kelly, Manager, Youth Programs, Mental Health First Aid Australia, talking at the Suicide Prevention Forum 2016

On the day those figures were released, the

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Where is work-related suicide in the Suicide Prevention Strategy?

Cover of Suicide_Prevention_2020_Strategy_Final_6.sflbFor all the discussion of workplace mental health, work-related suicide continues to receive little attention.  Part of this is because unexpected fatalities are shocking and distressing, even more so when the deaths are the result of the worker’s own efforts.

Recently the

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Just Culture and Restorative Justice

Sometimes it is better to read Sidney Dekker than listen to him.  His presentation style is lively but his research and thoughts deserve more measured analysis than a conference or seminar presentation allows.  A recent research paper, “‘Just culture:’ Improving safety by achieving substantive, procedural and restorative justice“, shows the advantage of reading over watching.

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