The BP Deepwater Horizon disaster has faded to become another safety leadership failure to be discussed in the OHS and risk management courses but some new research ($ paywall) in Critical Perspectives on Accounting provides a fresh perspective on BP’s safety culture and leadership prior to the major disaster by deconstructing the speeches of the the then-CEO, Tony Hayward.
There were three books that I left off my Christmas/Summer reading list. Each of them important for my occupational health and safety (OHS) professional development and personal curiosity.
The first is Rethink – The Surprising History of New Ideas by Steven Poole. This books looks at what we think are new ideas and sees the precursors or the ideas’ previous appearances. I was attracted to this perspective because I am seeing a lot of new ideas in OHS that are familiar and similar to what has come before. Continue reading “More books on the Christmas list”
Guest post from Col Finnie of fini:ohs :
This year (2016) I had two 2-month stints teaching OHS and risk management in Sichuan China as a casual employee for a Melbourne-based TAFE. It was quite a learning experience. And I thought to pass on a bit of the stuff I learned for others who might find themselves doing teaching or training in the economic powerhouse that is China. A total of 4 months teaching does not an expert make: so the “musings” here should be treated as intended: random observations from a China “newbie” for other newbies.
Both gigs were at a college in Deyang, a relatively small western region city (4 million pop. or thereabouts). Keep in mind “the vibe” changes a lot depending on size of the city. The capital of Sichuan is Chengdu, 80 km or so south-west of Deyang, and the vibe in that city of 14 and a bit million is significantly different to Deyang. Continue reading “Teaching OHS in China”
As 2016 comes to a close, I have dipped into the statistics and found the two SafetyAtWorkBlog articles that had the highest readership in 2016 were articles discussing the thoughts of Michael Tooma and Andrew Hopkins. Both of the articles were challenging – one of the existence or relevance of safety culture and the other about how occupational health and safety (OHS) is desperate for a change and struggling to start that change.
The statistics should not be surprising as both Tooma and Hopkins have a high recognition rate in the Australian OHS field and both have and international context – Hopkins through his analysis of industrial disasters and Tooma through his “safety differently” world tour. Continue reading “SafetyAtWorkBlog’s top two articles for 2016”
The media is full of lists of Christmas reading, usually in order to sell books. Below is a selection of the safety-related books that are in my Summer reading pile. (No, I am not going to list the Batman comics or Star Trek books. That would be embarrassing.)
I first met Robert Sams at a book launch of one of the Rob Long’s books. Sams’ approach to risk has some similarity to Long’s, which is acknowledged in the Forewards, but those who develop or apply a theory are often more interesting than those who created the theory. The the format of the book is a “reflective journal” also makes this nook more intriguing. It is part diary, part blog, part journal but above all it is a journey of learning with the occasional epiphany. Continue reading “SafetyAtWorkBlog’s Christmas reading list”
The Herald-Sun newspaper has released the final report into the mental health and suicide rate of Victorian metropolitan firefighters.
The report, authored by Dr Peter Cotton, found that the issues uncovered in the review of firefighters in the Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB) are not dissimilar from the findings of other inquiries into emergency service organisations like the police or the ambulance service.
I have purchased Kevin Burns’ book “PeopleWork” after receiving an email promotion but before I did I followed the link to his website and watched an embedded video where Kevin says:
“At no time in history have there been better processes and procedures in workplace safety and at no time in history have there been more certified safety professionals but at the same time the number of workplace incidents keep rising across the board.”
Any salesman is allowed some hyperbole but the last point does not stack up and is a bit confusing. For instance workplace fatalities have been declining in Australia for some decades but new work-related hazards are being acknowledged and existing hazards that were once dismissed are now being addressed. The number of certified occupational health and safety (OHS) professionals is irrelevant as the laws have existed for much longer and it is the laws with which employers must comply, not the advice of the OHS professional.
But Kevin Burns talks specifically about the number of workplace incidents and this is almost impossible to quantify.
Just after I purchased Kevin’s book I received a research paper entitled “