Two apocryphal Santa safety tales

Safety Lesson 1 – Check Santa’s Constitution

As a child I lived across the road from a carpet factory.  This huge factory had a wide paddock next door that, for a time, had two golf fairways and greens and a chicken farm.  This paddock was the scene of the annual Christmas Party and, although my parents had no association with the factory, some of the neighbourhood kids wangled our way into the work’s Christmas Party.

One year the company chose to have Santa arrive by helicopter.  We could hear the noise from some way off and a landing site in the paddock had been roped off.  It didn’t take long for the noise from the children, already hyperactive on sugary drinks in a hot Australian Summer, to match the helicopter’s noise as the children ran to the roped area.

The helicopter lands, the propellers wind down as the children’s cheering increases.  Continue reading “Two apocryphal Santa safety tales”

Zero Harm is dead, long live ……whatever comes next

Zero Harm was an enormously popular motivational aim for OHS.  It originated as a response in some large organisations where safety performance was plateauing and who felt that they had achieved as much as they could in redesigning work and improving physical safety.  The plateauing led to frustration and a reassessment of safety practices.  The remaining variable was seen to be the worker and so slogans were instigated to increase the care (or mindfulness) of workers.

However, this assessment seems to have taken the traditional, and shallow, approach.  One variable is, of course the worker but the assessors failed to see that the organisational structure and operations were, or should be, variable too.  In the words of the current Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, this variability, this adaptability, could lead to innovation, economic growth and increased sustainability.

The promotion of the zero harm approach to safety could be seen as a safety dead-end and an indication that organisations were fixed on only seeing the dead-end.  Safety thinkers, and there are a few, offered ways out of the dead-end by thinking differently about what we know.

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Look back at the OHS books of 2015

All professionals need to keep up with contemporary thinking and not only in their own discipline.  Below is a list of the books that I have read and reviewed in 2015.  This is followed by a list of the books still in my reading pile that I will get round to soon.

Books I have written about this year:

Workplace Bullying by Joseph Catanzariti and Keryl Egan

Job Quality in Australia edited by Angela Knox and Chris Warhurst

Master Work Health and Safety Guide 2nd Edition, CCH Wolter Klouwers

Ten Pathways to Death and Disaster – Learning from Fatal Incidents in Mines and Other High Hazard Workplaces by Michael Quinlan

Nightmare Pipeline Failures: Fantasy Planning, Black Swans and Integrity Management by Jan Hayes and Andrew Hopkins

Safe Design and Construction of Machinery – Regulation, Practice and Performance by Elizabeth Bluff Continue reading “Look back at the OHS books of 2015”

SafetyAtWorkBlog’s most popular articles of 2015

SafetyAtWorkBlog has had a successful 2015, consolidating itself as a valid independent voice on workplace health and safety, particularly in Australia. But readers don’t get access to some of the statistics for the site and as a year in review exercise below are the top five most-read articles written in 2015, highest readership first:

Impairment argument fails to convince Fair Work Commission over unfair dismissal

WorkSafe Victoria heads roll

Research raises serious questions on SIA’s certification push

Some are losing faith in the Victorian Workcover Authority 

Safety learnings from construction Continue reading “SafetyAtWorkBlog’s most popular articles of 2015”

Annual Reports can encourage SafeWash!

Annual ReportsCover of 1-s2.0-S0925753515002945-main are crucial corporate documents that should reflect the financial and organisational health and achievements of a company.  Only recently, in Australia, have Annual Reports been assessed for indications of occupational health and safety (OHS) other than fatalities.  Some of that analysis of injury data has appeared in an article in the Safety Science journal entitled “Safewash! Risk attenuation and the (Mis)reporting of corporate safety performance to investors” – an article that deserves careful consideration. Continue reading “Annual Reports can encourage SafeWash!”

Left in the abyss – the impact of a workplace death on relatives

In 2013, the University of Sydney established a research project into how workplace deaths affect the families of deceased workers.  In its information to participants, it stated:

“We are inviting you to participate in a study investigating the consequences of workplace death for surviving families. It will also consider how well official responses, such as workers’ compensation the provision of information and support, meet families’ needs. The aim is to identify improvements that will help to better manage the consequences of workplace death for surviving families.”

Two years later, the researchers have released some interim data.

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