The European Union conducts research into occupational health and safety that, although there may be cultural and legislative differences, deserves attention from outside that geographical region. Recently EuroFound released its annual review for 2014. There are a couple of research projects that deserve consideration, particularly return-on-investment in construction safety, violence at work, psychosocial issues and precarious work risks. Continue reading “EU provides clues for improving safety management”
Category: stress
Another mental health player joins the discussion
Recently, Ernst Young released a discussion paper about the risks of mental health in the workplace.
Mental health is a very popular topic at the moment and there are thousands of service providers in this sector. During the recent National Mental Health Week,
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Applying a “bullshit filter” during Mental Health Week
This week in Australia is Mental Health Week. Some call it an Mental Health Awareness Week. Either way the Australian media will be full of experts and “experts”. Workplace health strategies will not be excluded but when reading and listening to this media content, one important point should be remembered – “mental health” is significantly different from “mental illness”.
Such differentiation should not be dismissed as semantics because health, illness, problems and disorders involve different levels of analysis and diagnosis and, therefore, different strategies, interventions and control measures.
Recently the
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Workplace resilience gets a kicking
The Age newspaper has published a feature article entitled “Workplace resilience: It’s all a great big con“. Although it does not mention occupational health and safety (OHS) specifically, it is applying the OHS principle of addressing the causes of workplace injury and ill-health. It says that workplace resilience and similar training courses and strategies:
“… can’t overcome the structural realities and power imbalances that characterise the employment relationship. “Workplace resilience” might help us bear up to stress, but it won’t solve its underlying causes. And the causes of workplace unhappiness don’t necessarily reside in the individual and their own ability to “be resilient” or “relax” – they are part of the economic structures within which we work.”
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Yoga and yoghurt – corporate wellbeing
Professional organisations need to maintain personal contact between members and stakeholders even when social media allows for almost constant contact. Such events benefit from having thoughts challenged and recently one such event in Melbourne, Australia challenged its audience about psychological health and wellbeing.
A recent NSCA Foundation event heard from Andrew Douglas, one of the few workplace relations lawyers who can bridge the law and the real world. He began by describing wellness or wellbeing in a fresh context.
“Wellbeing is that equilibrium that is achieved between challenge and resources.”
This perspective addresses business operations and personnel management as challenges – situations that arise that need controlling or managing. This is a useful perspective as long as people feel up to the challenge and are not defeatist.
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Unfair expectations on the individual
Harvard Business Review (HBR) is a justifiably respected business publication but it often sells occupational health and safety (OHS) short. A new HBR article, “Stress Is Your Brain Trying to Avoid Something“, is a case in point.
Too much of the contemporary approaches to psychosocial hazards at work focus on the individual without addressing the organisational. This often compounds the struggles of individual workers and encourages managers to blame workers instead of analysing the organisational and cultural factors that lead to a hazard or incident.
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Conversation about work-related grief
Recently SafetyAtWorkBlog was able to spend some time with Bette Phillips-Campbell, the Manager of GriefWork, a unit of the Creative Ministries Network in Melbourne. GriefWork provides a range of support services to families of those who have died at work or due to work factors.
The conversation touches on issues including
- how GriefWork operates and is funded,
- work-related suicide,
- worker memorials,
- the application of restorative justice in the workplace context,
- how a workplace death affects company executives,
The interview can be accessed at Bette Phillips Interview 2015
If you want more information about GriefWork or how you may be able to help this service, please contact Bette on (61) 03 9692 9427 or by email.