The G20 summit in Pittsburgh, United States, this week will include a lot of analysis of the global financial crisis and various stimulus packages. Some, such as Professor Henry Mintzberg, have pointed the finger at business courses, such as the Master of Business Administration, that have encouraged personal greed. Some in the executive industry describe (rationalise?) this … Continue reading “Leadership, MBAs and Community”
Further to the recent blog article on New South Wales WorkCover statistics, SafetyAtWorkBlog has been provided with a copy of the official Comparative Performance Monitoring (CPM) report that was released in August 2008. These figures are used to measure performance against the National OHS Strategy 2002-2012. SafeWorkAustralia has told SafetyAtWorkBlog that the next edition is due … Continue reading “Aspirational targets are next to useless put politically expedient”
According to a paper presented at the latest Industrial & Organisational Psychology Conference organised by the Australian Psychological Society, poor quality emails are causing almost as much stress in the workplace as the number received. New Zealand provisional (?) psychologist, Rowena Brown, was presenting findings from her PhD studies and said “Email is a double-edged … Continue reading “More workplace stressors, email and upwards bullying”
Victoria’s WorkHealth program is due to roll-out its next stage of worker health assessments. However, the program has been seriously curtailed by the failure of its funding model. According to The Age newspaper on 18 may 2009, employer associations have begun to withdraw their support compounding the embarrassment to the Premier, John Brumby, who lauded the … Continue reading “WorkHealth concerns increase”
Safety professionals should be suspicious of many management trends. Over the last decade behavioural-based safety has been popular and more recently workplaces have been subjected to the application of amorphous concepts such as leadership and engagement. Many of these are dressing up old approaches to management in new jargon, some have little evidence to back … Continue reading “Groundwork for employee engagement”
Not so long ago, it was considered a legitimate criticism to blame the individual for “doing the wrong thing” at work. Depending on the type of worksite, this was considered “human error” or “bloody stupid”. Fatigue is an interesting illustration of how occupational health and safety must cope with new perspectives on established hazards. Australian … Continue reading “Fatigue is the biggest threat to a person’s safety”
Since the 2006 rockfall at Beaconsfield Mine in Tasmania, the public has received limited information. There have been books about the rescue of two workers and the Coroner’s inquest into the death of Larry Knight. Greg Mellick undertook an investigation into the rockfall and found that noone was to blame for the rockfall. Many workplace … Continue reading “Why won’t the Tasmanian government release the OHS report into the Beaconsfield mine collapse?”