Bill Kelty believes employers have an absolute duty to provide workers with a safe, healthy workplace. He asked how any company can operate without giving occupational health and safety (OHS) its highest priority.
Already a member? Log in here
Category: workplace
The Rigged System Behind Workplace Injury and Illness
At the time of writing, it looks like the Democrats in the United States are smashing the Republicans and President Trump in the mid-term elections. One of the earliest winners was Democrat Jon Ossoff. His campaign strategy, focused on calling out presidential and political corruption, seems to have worked. This strategy of blunt honesty could be exported to Australia and applied in arguments about reducing work-related injuries and deaths.
Already a member? Log in here
When Burnout Is Framed as a Systems Problem But the Questions Remain Personal
Organisational psychologist John Chan recently launched his company’s 2026 State of Workplace Burnout Report, presenting burnout as a consequence of work design rather than individual resilience. While many of the findings of this grey literature will be familiar to OHS professionals, the audience questions offered interesting insight into how burnout is understood outside the safety profession.
Already a member? Log in here
Psychosocial Safety Is Becoming a Governance Test, Not a Wellbeing Program
Three recent legal commentaries reveal something important about the evolution of workplace health and safety. They address different issues, from board governance to sexual harassment investigations and cumulative psychosocial hazards, but they all point to the same conclusion: employers are running out of opportunities to treat psychological health as an individual problem. We may be at the start of a work revolution.
Already a member? Log in here
Back Pain Data Still Falls Short of What OHS Needs
Back pain is a serious, ongoing occupational health and safety (OHS) challenge. A recent survey by the Australian Chiropractors Association (ACA) provides some indication of the scale of the problem, but it could have been so much more.
Already a member? Log in here
Billable Hours, Suicide Risk and the Professional Class’s Blind Spot
The legal profession has spent decades asking why lawyers are burning out, becoming depressed and leaving practice. The newly released Mental Health and Wellbeing in Legal Workplaces: A Global Guide may have inadvertently provided the answer. As is becoming clear elsewhere, the “mental health crisis” is less a psychological problem than an organisational and systemic one, even in a profession with a strong institutional culture, high legislative awareness and a sense of sophistication.
Already a member? Log in here
What “safety” can learn from “curry”
Asma Khan’s criticism of the word “curry” in a recent Instagram post offers an unexpected warning for occupational health and safety (OHS) people, and me in particular. A convenient collective term can make a complex subject easier to discuss, but it can also strip away its layers. In much the same way, “safety” is routinely asked to encompass machinery, chemicals, occupational disease, fatigue, bullying, violence, excessive workloads and other physical and psychological hazards.
The problem is not necessarily the word. The problem arises when the umbrella becomes the entire explanation.
Already a member? Log in here