In August 2015, Western Australia’s Department of Mines & Petroleum (DMP) released a statistical analysis that seems to do little more than confirm what is already known. It is important to validate data but the mining sector often promotes itself as leading in occupational health and safety (OHS) but this report seems dull and dated. Continue reading “Old school OHS in mining”
Category: statistics
Inexactitudes could lead to OHS myths
Consulting firm Deloittes recently announced the merging of its occupational health and safety (OHS) and sustainability sectors in order to provide better customer services. In the article Deloittes says about the importance of workplace mental health:
“Given that one in six working age Australians live with mental illness including depression, that is costing Australian businesses at least $11 billion dollars each year, this is a growing area“.
But the source of this statement is unclear and this lack of clarity may be contributing to some of the inexactitudes in the mental health/wellbeing debate. Continue reading “Inexactitudes could lead to OHS myths”
Queensland’s workers’ compensation performance is “double plus good”
The Queensland Premier, Campbell Newman, called a “snap” election for the end of January 2015. On 11 January 2015, Newman tweeted:
“Queenslanders injured at work are covered by Australia’s strongest workers’ compensation scheme.”
This is a further example of political newspeak as what does a “strong” workers’ compensation scheme look like? Newman’s tweet included an image that provides some clarity to his claim.
Continue reading “Queensland’s workers’ compensation performance is “double plus good””
2014 in review – SafetyAtWorkBlog
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 110,000 times in 2014. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 5 days for that many people to see it.
Sniping in social media raises issues about hydration
A spat has recently emerged on one of the safety discussion forums in Linkedin. The catalyst was a statement that
““
The source of this data, not disclosed at the time of the original post, was a company that sells
“…a great tasting, scientifically proven mix of cutting-edge branch chain amino acids and low Gi carbohydrates for sustained energy release, combined with a formulated blend of electrolytes for optimum hydration in harsh Australian conditions”.
The discussion quickly refocused from the original safety concern to one of unreliability of statements; sadly the discussion also became personal and abusive. but the discussion raised two discussion points:
- The reliability of statements on the internet, and
- the issue of hydration and work performance.
Continue reading “Sniping in social media raises issues about hydration”
New workplace bullying evidence
There have been many claims of a workplace bullying epidemic in Australia but there has always been a lack of evidence. Research has been targeted into specific industry sectors or regions but broad ranging studies have been few. This lack of evidence was a major frustration for the Parliamentary Inquiry into Workplace Bullying that concluded in late 2012. However useful evidence is beginning to appear.
A recent edition of the Journal of Health Safety and Environment included a report (subscribers only) entitled “The prevalence and nature of bullying: A national study of Australian workers”. The authors, Dr Sarven McLinton, Maureen Dollard, Michelle Tuckey and Tessa Bailey, wrote that the study
“… shows that nearly 7% of Australian workers reported bullying and harassment in the past six months.” (page 283)
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CEO survey shows odd attitude to OHS
One has to be very careful with surveys, particularly those involving business confidence or surveys of an organisation’s membership base. These are often surveys of perception which may not correlate with reality and can be used as an excuse to lobby government or set an agenda rather than determining a societal truth. A recent example of this type of survey seems to have been produced by the Australian Industry Group entitled “Burden of Government Regulation“. The AIGroup’s media release accompanying the report states that
“Over 83% of employers surveyed listed regulation related to industrial relations and occupational health and safety as a significant regulatory burden in 2014.”