For safety management and the profession to progress, the information horizons must broaden. Particularly in Australia, safety research runs the risk of developing upper-class chinless inbreds as, in many cases, it is divorced from reality and often does not look beyond the horizon both in distance or time. But research work in other disciplines may have applications in … Continue reading “Artificial intelligence in safety”
For years, safety professionals have whinged about their profession and their skills not receiving the attention of Chief Executive Officers and board members. They take some solace in the occasional missive that executives understand leadership and, by extension, safety leadership but the reality is that OHS professionals do not understand CEOs. CEOs are Olympian Gods and OHS professionals live … Continue reading “Gods and Leaders – the fantasy distraction of the safety profession”
In May 2010, Workplace Health & Safety Queensland uploaded a Workplace Harassment Assessment Tool. The curious element to the information is that Queensland does not mention the word “bullying” even though the assessment criteria cover this hazard. As Australia moves to harmonised legislation on workplace safety issues, the harmonisation of terminology is going to be important and probably subject to lively … Continue reading “Harmonising bullying terminology extends well beyond OHS”
Guest contributor Jim Ward writes: Interested observers of past OHS failures would do well to pay close attention to the insights of former BP employee Ross Macfarlane in the SafetyAtWorkBlog – A personal insight into BP and the corporate approach to safety. His erudite observations of some of the underlying issues surrounding BP’s succession of … Continue reading “Leadership starts with the truth”
Queensland’s Department of Justice and Attorney-General has announced that an insulation installation company will be charged with offences under its safety legislation due to the death of an employee. This is the first safety prosecution related to the Government’s , failed, job creation scheme. According to a media statement issued late on 5 May 2010, “QHI Installations Pty Ltd … Continue reading “First prosecution announced over insulation-related deaths”
On 27 April 2010, less than 24 hours after a highly critical television program was broadcast about his government’s mismanagement of its insulation rebate scheme, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologised to the families of the men who died while installing roof insulation. “Certainly, when it comes to the Fuller family, I, together with other ministers of the government, are … Continue reading ““For the government, safety has always been the number one priority” – Really?”
New survey data on business attitudes to safety was revealed at the Safety In Action Conference on 20 April 2010. The data was released jointly by the Australian Institute of Management and the Safety Institute of Australia (SIA). In short there was not much that was new in the survey data but the survey was important for several reasons.