I recently refreshed my Lead Auditor in OHS training – the first time since Australia updated its Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems Standard to ISO45001. It was challenging on some issues but generic on others. Due to the recent heightened awareness of psychosocial hazards in the workplace, I was watching for how this hazard …
Is it time that we reassessed night shift work through the occupational health and safety (OHS) lens? In 2022 Dr Lin Shen and Dr Tracey Sletten of Monash University will be starting a research study, supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council, to “… examine the role of light in the response to …
A recent academic commentary on “Aging and the Future of Decent Work”* by many international researchers contains some interesting thoughts on employer obligations and health promotion. The report makes some specific comments about the effectiveness of health promotion programs for older workers: Workplace health promotion programs may encounter obstacles that impede desired results. For example, …
Christopher Cassiniti’s story is tragic on many levels. 18 years old, first construction job, Mum is running the tuckshop onsite, dead in a scaffold collapse in April 2019 at Macquarie Park (a site I know very well, more below), an incident for which the construction company, Ganellen, has pleaded guilty and has been fined less …
It seems that we are constantly being urged to innovate, to be creative and to think differently. This is equally true in the discipline of occupational health and safety (OHS), but part of thinking differently in the future should also involve reassessing the past. It is often said that many the OHS performance indicators, predominantly …
Fatigue and impairment are two of the most difficult workplace hazards to address. These are further complicated when they are contextualised in workplace mental health. So it is concerning when an entrepreneur produces a product that is meant to help address mental fatigue but that may also mask occupational health and safety (OHS) actions that …
I have tinnitus. There I have outed myself along with 18% of men and 14% of women, according to a research report* from Hearing Research journal published recently. For those unfamiliar with tinnitus it is a persistent buzzing or ringing in one’s ears usually caused by exposure to loud noise. It is relevant to occupational …
