Safe Work Australia’s work-related psychological health and safety guidance focusses on the elimination risks and hazards, as required under Australia’s workplace health and safety laws. But a slight technical change in the legislation when it moved from occupational health and safety (OHS) to work health and safety (WHS) impedes its successful acceptance.
Australia’s Work Health and Safety laws dropped a reference in the Act’s Objects that would have provided considerable support to work-related mental health and this guidance.
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A SafetyAtWorkBlog reader emailed me this question:
It is important to note that “
Data about occupational health and safety (OHS) and work-related psychosocial injuries has often been described as being hard to find. In some ways it is not necessarily hard to find but difficult to access. An untapped source of data is the records of illness and leave taken that is usually held by the Human Resources (HR) departments, often named “People and Culture”or some variant. This type of data could be invaluable in determining a workplace psychological profile, if the HR departments would trust OHS professionals more, or release this data in a format that would allow OHS professionals to assess risks while maintaining employees’ privacy.
The Australia Institute
Throwing chocolates to delegates, audience participation, push-ups, book giveaways, hand-eye coordination exercises – not the usual elements of the opening keynote speaker of a safety conference. Day 2 of the Safety Institute of Australia’s