psychosocial – Page 98 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

Self-employment should not be seen as a work/life solution

Work/life balance is a close cousin to occupational health and safety (OHS), particularly health. It is often the gateway people use to reduce occupational health risks such as stress and other psychosocial issues. Moving to self-employment can be a successful strategy but it is not as easy as simply relocating one’s individual workplace or teleworking, the expected control on work hours may not eventuate and it may be very difficult to maintain a livable wage. In The Saturday Age on April 26 2014 (not locatable on-line), Dr Natalie Skinner of the Australian Centre for Work + Life, provided a useful perspective.

Skinner writes that her annual surveys over the last six years have indicated that:

“self-employment is neither better nor worse for work-life conflict than being an employee.”

Skinner acknowledges that this seems odd because there has been so much debate about the win-win of workplace flexibility.

New Zealand trumps Australia on workplace bullying advice

WorkSafe NZ has released “best practice guidelines” on workplace bullying. Best practice is a nonsense term but this guide is a major step above similar guides in Australia, in particular.

Definitions

Guides always begin with definitions and the definition New Zealand has applied is the same as that in the recently released Australian workplace bullying guide but with a couple of odd semantic differences. These variations should not have any effect on organisational changes required to prevent bullying but the variations are curious. Australia describes “unreasonable behaviour” the actions that generate the bullying as:

“… behaviour that a reasonable person, having considered the circumstances, would see as unreasonable, including behaviour that is victimising, humiliating, intimidating or threatening.”

New Zealand’s definition is:

“…. actions that a reasonable person in the same circumstances would see as unreasonable. It includes victimising, humiliating, intimidating or threatening a person.”

Is there a difference between actions and behaviours?

Workplace mental health deserves more attention

Mental health needs in the workplace has been an evolving area of study and application and has been followed by the SafetyAtWorkBlog since its inception. Several recent statements and reports in Australia have shown that the subject continues to be discussed but not by those who can make the substantial social change, the Government, partly due to a lack of the type of evidence needed by Government to justify the change.

Mental Health is the core element of almost all the contemporary workplace hazards that are categorised as psychosocial. This includes stress, bullying, fatigue, suicide, work/life balance, and many more. Each of these categories are important but most reporting and a lot of the health promotion initiatives in the workplace focus on the manifestation of mental health instead of the source.

On February 21 2014 the chair of the

Workplace safety and the human condition

Articles and reports about decent work, dignity at work and mental health issues are increasingly appearing on my desktop. Perhaps this indicates a convergence of perspectives to a better understanding of the human imperative in the modern workplace. It may be a realisation of where and how work fits the human condition.

On May 1 2012, the Australian Catholic Social Justice Council (ACSJC) issued a pastoral letter on the “Dignity of Work“. This came across my desk around the same time as I was looking at values-based safety. The parallels between dignity and values-based safety were obvious.

Category: psychosocial

Self-employment should not be seen as a work/life solution

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New Zealand trumps Australia on workplace bullying advice

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Workplace mental health deserves more attention

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Workplace safety and the human condition

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