What is a psychological incident?

The Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS) for Victoria’s draft Psychological Health Regulation does not seem to define what is meant by a psychosocial incident. (If I have missed it, please include a reference in the comments section below) In trying to establish a workplace mental health demographic, the RIS states that: “As there is currently no … Continue reading “What is a psychological incident?”

Reluctance to address mental health notifications

Another example of the unwillingness of occupational health and safety (OHS) regulators feeling able to affect change in workplace mental health by looking outside the workplace is the United Kingdom’s Health & Safety Executive (HSE). Sadly this position contributes to unnecessarily stigmatising a legitimate workplace hazard. On a recent episode of the Safety and Health …

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OHS and wage theft

Australia is several years into a scandal of underpayment of workers referred to, by some, as wage theft. Occupational health and safety (OHS) would not normally figure in a wages and industrial relations (IR) scandal but the scandal has a legitimate OHS context. The previous, and ongoing, scandals are not going to be summarised in …

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OHS podcast that analyses academic papers

Two workplace health and safety researchers, David Provan and Drew Rae have teamed up for a weekly podcast called “The Safety of Work”. I haven’t got through all of them yet, but the format seems to be that each episode looks at an interesting occupational health and safety (OHS) research to see how the evidence …

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“Moral Harassment” = Workplace Bullying. France Telecom lessons

The France Telecom suicide saga has reached a conclusion with a French Court sending several of company’s former executives to jail as a result of “collective moral harassment”. This will have very little impact on the management of occupational health and safety (OHS) in Australia because of the timing and inadequate translation and context. “Moral …

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Suicide Prevention, Genders and Workplace Interventions

2019 was always going to be a Year of Mental Health for Australians as there are various official inquiries and investigations occurring. Last week alone, the Royal Commission into Mental Health Systems focused on suicide prevention. This overlapped with the National Suicide Prevention Conference (NSPC) and on Friday one of Australia’s National Mental Health Commissioners, …

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Workplace suicides require organisational analyses

Some media reports on the recent suicide of another Australian Federal Police (AFP) officer indicate a change away from the dominant perspective of addressing the individual worker rather than institutional factors. This article is not denying that suicide is a personal decision.  It is an act that most of us do not understand and struggle …

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