A link to an article of sound ergonomic advice was emailed to SafetyAtWorkBlog in early April 2010 suggesting readers may be interested. The article is entitled “The Ultimate Guide to Ergonomics: 50 Tips & Tricks for Serious Students” and contains some good suggestions but it seems to be based on some assumptions that are not necessarily present in the real world of students. Continue reading “Good ergonomics advice but prevention should have been emphasised”
Category: wellness
Employees’ OHS responsibility and working beyond the maximum hours
One of the most powerful motivators for behavioural change in workplaces is the legislative obligation on employees to not put themselves at risk of injury nor to act in such a way as to place others at risk.
Reported in the Australian media on 31 March 2010, Fair Work Australia has ruled that employees in the fruit-picking industry may volunteer for work beyond the standard 38-hour week without receiving penalty rates or overtime. The union movement is understandably concerned about how this financially disadvantages workers and how this ruling may spread beyond the fruit-picking industry.
The ruling allows fruit-pickers to choose to work beyond their regular shifts. Will they be able to work safely? Will they not be fatigued? Will they have sufficient daylight to undertake the tasks safely? Will there be sufficient downtime for workers to recover from a long work day and be fit for work? Could the workers’ choice to undertake additional fruit-picking tasks be a breach of their OHS obligations to look after their own safety, health and welfare?
The employees may choose to ignore their own occupational health for the sake of additional dollars but should they then be eligible for workers’ compensation if the effects of those longer hours are found to have contributed to an injury or illness? Continue reading “Employees’ OHS responsibility and working beyond the maximum hours”
Unprecedented interest in workplace bullying
On 25 March 2010, at the first of ten workplace bullying information seminars, WorkSafe Victoria, claimed to have a world-class approach to combating workplace bullying. The Europeans may dispute the claim but there is no doubt that WorkSafe is on the right path in responding to the unprecedented community interest in the issue.
In a packed hall in the City of Melbourne, Trevor Martin, WorkSafe’s Strategic Programs Director, acknowledged the considerable media interest in the hazard over the last few years, and particularly since the prosecution of four men in associated with bullying at Cafe Vamp. Martin said that WorkSafe’s advisory help line has been receiving more that 40 calls per day on bullying and harassment issues and that
“In February [2010] 560 calls were received …… 10%, 56 cases made it through to the dedicated unit for further work to be done. That is an astonishing number of calls to WorkSafe on a single issue.” Continue reading “Unprecedented interest in workplace bullying”
Workplace bullying needs harmony and good managers
The Australian Financial Review on 24 March 2010 includes an article (only available through subscription or hard copy purchase) that states that the “tangle of state laws hampers compliance” by business on the issue of workplace bullying. Harvard Business Review reports on how to cut through the distractions and attend to a root cause of workplace bullying. Continue reading “Workplace bullying needs harmony and good managers”
OHS awards consider work/life balance but not vice versa
On 15 March 2010, the Australian Government congratulated the winners of, and participants in, the 2009–10 National Work–Life Balance Awards.
According to a media release from the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations:
“The Awards…. recognise family friendly practices like flexible working hours, options for working from home, paid parental leave, job sharing, onsite carer’s facilities and study assistance.”
Teleworking and flexible working hours are both directly relevant to occupational health safety but also through the OHS elements of work/life balance. But the National Work-Life Balance Awards Team told SafetyAtWorkBlog that
“No direct OHS performance indicators were included in the judging criteria for the 2009-10 National Work-LIfe Balance Awards.” Continue reading “OHS awards consider work/life balance but not vice versa”
Does being fat equate to being unsafe at work?
There are several initiatives throughout the world under the banner of workplace health that have little relation to work. They are public health initiatives administered through the workplace with, often, a cursory reference to the health benefits also having a productivity benefit.
So is a fat worker less safe than a thin worker? Such a general question cannot be answered but it illustrates an assumption that is underpinning many of the workplace health initiatives. There is little doubt that workers with chronic health conditions take more leave but, in most circumstances, this leave is already accounted for in the business plan.
Sick leave is estimated at a certain level for all workers across a workplace and, sometimes, a nation. There is an entitlement for a certain amount of sick leave for all workers, fat and thin, “healthy” or “unhealthy”. It certainly does not mean that the entitlement will be taken every year but the capacity is there and businesses accommodate this in their planning and costs.
Remove this generic entitlement so that only working hours remain. Is a fat worker less productive than a thin worker? Is a worker without any ailments more productive than a person with a chronic ailment? Is a smoker more productive than a non-smoker or a diabetic or a paraplegic? Continue reading “Does being fat equate to being unsafe at work?”
When looking to understand psychosocial issues, ask your grandparents
In February 2010, the New York Times ran an article about depression by Jonah Lehrer. The same article appeared in some of Australia’s weekend newspapers in early March. Lehrer looks at the issue of depression and considers whether there is a potential upside to the disorder by looking back as far as Charles Darwin for expressions of depression. He makes a challenging statement:
“…that depression has a secret purpose and our medical interventions are making a bad situation even worse. Like a fever that helps the immune system fight off infection — increased body temperature sends white blood cells into overdrive — depression might be an unpleasant yet adaptive response to affliction.”
Lehrer goes on to make a case for depression being a possible source of creativity.
He refers extensively to the evolutionary psychology research of Andy Thomson and Paul Andrews who acknowledge that
“… depression is a vast continuum, a catch-all term for a spectrum of symptoms.”
Perhaps, particularly in the relatively recent consideration of depression in workplaces, we are being too narrow and too specific. Perhaps the case for workplace depression being made by some of the “depression sellers” is too targeted and we need to remind ourselves of the sociology of work, a perspective that seems to have gone out of fashion. Continue reading “When looking to understand psychosocial issues, ask your grandparents”