research – Page 48 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

COVID, Blame and Employers

Australia has not had a crisis in public health to the magnitude of COVID-19 for a very long time. It is understandable for people to look at a public health crisis through the reference point of their own experience and profession. There is an overlap between the management of the pandemic and occupational health and safety (OHS), but that overlap should not be inflated.

Jason Thompson wrote an excellent (and recommended) article on COVID-19 and blame for the University of Melbourne titled “Get Ready for a Shift in the COVID Blame Game”. I had the chance to put a few questions to him about the article.

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Office Noise and Mental Health

Too much weight is given to occupational health and safety (OHS) surveys and research that rely on self-reported data. Such data is subject to social and personal biases. It has its role in the state of knowledge, but its authority and worth is frequently overstated.

A recent research project into the OHS effects of working in open-plan offices removed this level of subjectivity by using a simulated office environment. The researchers’ findings provide a useful context to office design (not a new issue) and work-related mental health, especially when workers are being encouraged to return to the office.

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Look to the greed behind the corporate culture

Today the Governance Institute of Australia distributed a promotional email for its September national conference. These conferences often provide a useful perspective on broad occupational health and safety (OHS) issues. One gets to see how OHS is seen to fit (if at all!) in the established business and governance structures.

A key theme of this year’s conference is Culture which is a critical issue for most companies, even if they don’t realise it, and one with which the OHS profession is very familiar. However, the Institute, its members and conference delegates should be challenged to analyse Culture more deeply than what is indicated in the promotional email and article.

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What is behind the fluctuation of mental health claims?

If you are contemplating running a survey about workplace health and safety, make it longitudinal. That is, structure your survey so that data can be compared over a long period of time by clearly defining your questions to the general rather than the topical. Topical questions can be included occasionally (they can freshen up a survey), but the core of the survey needs to be robust.

Recently Safe Work Australia (SWA) released the 6th edition of workers compensation claim data for psychosocial health and safety and bullying in Australia. It is a short statement of data that offers some interesting trends and continues the survey’s limitations.

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Business should stop complaining about paying for mental health. It’ll boost the bottom line.

[Article reprinted, with permission, from the May 24 edition of Crikey newsletter]

Luke Slawomirski

During the 2020 lockdowns, the business lobby showed a surprising concern for Victorians’ mental health: lockdowns were bad because they’d cause a spike in mental illness and suicides far worse than the COVID-19 cases and deaths they’d prevent.

The suicide spike never happened. What did happen was much-needed additional funding for mental health — $3.8 billion over four years — announced in the 2021-22 state budget on Thursday.

But the way business reacted suggests its interest in mental health has waned.

You see, the measures aimed at better prevention, diagnosis and treatment of mental ill health will be funded by a levy: 0.5% for businesses with payrolls above $10 million and 1% for those above $100 million. Critics, including the federal treasurer, claim this will cruel “job creation and confidence“.

The causes of unsafe behaviours

This blog has always had strong reservations about the occupational health and safety (OHS) focus on the unsafe behaviour of workers to the exclusion of organisational and socio-economic factors. A recent research study on Iranian workers provides a fresh look at the causes of unsafe behaviours applicable to a wide range of occupations.

The report* by Mahdi Malakoutikhah, Mehdi Jahangiri, Moslem Alimohammadlou,
Seyed Aliakbar Faghihi, Mojtaba Kamalinia of the Shiraz University in Iran found three factors contributing to unsafe behaviours:

Organisational
Individual
Socio-economic

Nothing radical in those categories but the subcategories and themes are more useful as this table shows.

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Australia gets serious on psychological health at work

Below is an article written by Carlo Caponecchia and published originally on May 25 2021. Caponecchia is a leading figure in workplace psychological hazards and strategies. The article is reproduced with permission.

Employers are about to ramp up their efforts to protect mental health at work.

Last week, workplace health and safety (WHS) ministers from around Australia agreed to changes that will formalise what’s expected of employers in relation to mental health in Regulation.

These changes respond to a review of the model WHS laws by Marie Boland, former Executive director at Safework South Australia. The model WHS laws are a “blueprint” used since 2011 to make safety laws more consistent across the States and Territories.

Category: research

COVID, Blame and Employers

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Office Noise and Mental Health

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Look to the greed behind the corporate culture

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What is behind the fluctuation of mental health claims?

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Business should stop complaining about paying for mental health. It’ll boost the bottom line.

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The causes of unsafe behaviours

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Australia gets serious on psychological health at work

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