Gabrielle Carlton, Director & Principal Consultant at Resylience, recently published an interesting article about her experience with a former Australian soldier who was struggling with work-related mental ill-health. The mental health of defence personnel is a hugely important and complex situation that questions the core function of defence and our expectations of defence personnel. However, …
The WorkSafe Victoria Business Leaders Breakfast earlier this week offered a chance for interested parties to hear from WorkSafe and its guest Rod Maule, the General Manager of Safety and Wellbeing at Australia Post. WorkSafe’s Colin Radford offered a “stump speech” that, although familiar, was important. Maule was a colourful speaker who, on reflection, wasn’t …
South Australia is the latest Australian jurisdiction to introduce Industrial Manslaughter penalties. The magnitude of the potential penalties is reasonable, given that they come from an employer’s reckless conduct that leads to a fatality. However, many of the deterrent and preventive impacts expected by politicians and advocates have not been proven. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation …
Recently WorkSafe Victoria distributed two strategy documents to one of its reference groups. (They are not yet publicly available.) SafetyAtWorkBlog has seen the “Strategic approach to occupational health 2023-2026” and “Transport Fatality Prevention Strategic Approach 2023-2026”. The first includes the following occupational health categories:...
Adam Goodes will be a featured speaker at the 23rd World Congress of Health and Safety At Work in Sydney, Australia, in November 2023. My initial response was, “What does he know about workplace health and safety?” This question is perhaps more indicative of my limited perspective of occupational health and safety (OHS). I have …
Excessive working hours are a known occupational health and safety (OHS) hazard, both physically and psychologically. But when the excessive, excessive? When do these excessive hours start to create harm? A recent article by the Centre for Work Health and Safety clarifies, confuses and may startle....
It seems that being “mindful” is now more commonly advocated than being careful. “Mindful” has become the equivalent of “careful”, but these words have different meanings and are not interchangeable. Occupational health and safety (OHS) laws impose a Duty of Care, not a Duty of Mind. Much of the social media discussion on Mindful vs Careful seems to … Continue reading “From mindful back to careful”
