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 …
Suicide is a reality in many workplaces. Work may exacerbate the stresses and psychological conditions leading to people thinking of suicide and it can create those stresses. Most workers at risk of suicide show signs of distress, just as all workplaces show signs like near misses, but these signs are often not recognised. Mates in …
On 1 June 2015 Australia’s Radio National broadcast a discussion about the future of work, in support of a Vivid Festival conference. Listening to the discussion through the prism of occupational health and safety (OHS) is an interesting experience as work/life balance is promoted as empowering the individual but, as we know in OHS, individuals …
Australian recruiting firm, Sacs Consulting, has released the findings of a survey entitled “Dangerous Personalities making work unsafe“. Such surveys are predominantly marketing exercises and usually, as in this case, there is a limited amount of data available but the results are often broadly distributed and add to the discussion about workplace safety. The headline … Continue reading “Dangerous personalities making work unsafe – really?”
Beyondblue has just released a report into the cost of mental health in the workplace prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and called “Creating a mentally healthy workplace – Return on investment analysis“. The report is interesting but of limited use for those looking for ways to make their own workplaces safer and healthier with minimal cost. The …
Several weeks ago there was a stir in the OHS sector in Victoria, Australia. WorkSafe was to disappear. Quickly the WorkSafe executives clarified that the organisation would continue to exist but that the trading name of “WorkSafe” would go. Unions and others were suspicious as such a decision was unexpected, even by WorkSafe it appears, and …
Australia’s Royal Commission into the Home Insulation Program (HIP) demands the attention of all occupational health and safety (OHS) professionals, primarily, because a job creation and economic stimulus program was so poorly planned at the highest level of government, that it seems to have established a culture that led to workplace deaths. However the Royal …