It is almost impossible to underestimate the impact that Australia’s Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation
and Financial Services Industry is already having on the corporate cultures of Australian businesses. The effective management of occupational health and safety (OHS) relies on effective consultation, trust and respect just as does any other element in a company’s organisational culture.
The media on August 13 2018 has been
Trust is an essential element of effective business management, as relevant to consultation over occupational health and safety (OHS) matters as it between a business and its clients. Increasingly there is discussion about a “social licence” or a “social licence to operate” in relation to OHS. In many ways this is a response to the perceived heartlessness of neoliberal economics and social interactions, a response that the OHS profession needs to seriously examine.
In November 2017, New Zealand company
It is a common tactic for procrastinators to acknowledge a problem and then point to an ill-defined, fluffy concept as the problem because that fluffiness makes it almost impossible to change, some use the phrase “wicked problem” similarly. The fluffy concept may be too difficult for most to understand, or the benefits will not be quick enough or not fit into an unrealistic preconceived schedule. “Safety Culture”, or the currently preferred term “organisational culture that includes safety”, is often used to justify this procrastination.
At the end of August 2018,
Book publisher Routledge has recently released books about occupational health and safety (OHS) that are very critical of OHS’ role, or that of the health and safety professional, in modern business. Below I dip into the
In my readings on Industrial Manslaughter, a reader recommended a book to help me understand how the world works. I haven’t found the time to read it through because I get angry and/or depressed, but I wanted to share a suggestion that may help clarify our occupational health and safety (OHS) obligations and provide a reconsideration of the employer’s duty of care.
In “Why Not Jail? – Industrial Catastrophes, Corporate Malfeasance, and Government Inaction“, Rena Steinzor summarised some work by David Luban and others in a research paper called “Moral Responsibility in the Age of Bureaucracy“. Steinzor outlines five managerial duties:
Australia’s Royal Commission into banking and financial services is a few months in and the evidence provided of wrongdoing is so substantial that those who were critical of the need for such an investigation are admitting they were wrong.
SafetyAtWorkBlog is applying the logic that occupational health and safety (OHS) succeeds best when it is part of the organisational culture. Australia has often held its banking and financial services as “world-class” and many of that industry sector’s leaders have been prominent in speaking about the importance of leadership and corporate morality.
The financial and banking industry’s credibility and authority in Australia is gone and the OHS profession can learn much from this failure, even when the failure is in its early stages of exposure.
I was born outside Liverpool England well over 50 years ago and have lived on the other side of the world ever since. I love hearing accents from Northern England as it reminds me of my relatives, my roots and, most of all, my Mother. This meant that I had to watch Sidney Dekker‘s latest 30 minute documentary at least twice so that I paid attention to what was said rather than how.
“Just Culture – The Movie” (accessible through the YouTube share below) tells the story of the transformation from a divisive and unproductive blame culture to a just culture. It is an important story because it is theory, concept and idea made real, and made real in an industry sector that has a complex organisational culture only partly explained by its funding model.