When a financial newspaper or website posts an article about workplace safety, it is worth reading. The fact of such an article does not mean, though, that safety management is the focus of the story. A 17 November 2009 article in the Wall Street Journal, ” Workers Denied Company Help Due to Stress-Related Complaints” understandably … Continue reading “Managing stress the Wall Street Journal way”
The research statistics quoted in an earlier blog article have finally been located. It is important to understand the limitations of the study. Firstly, these are not statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics so they do not have the same weight as the regularly issued Labour Force statistics. It would be great if the government began collating this … Continue reading “More on leave retention and mental health”
The Australian Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ACCI) has released a statement that discusses the economic and personal costs of presenteeism in relation to Australia’s new National Employment Standards. In the statement the ACCI mentions: “…the colossal national stockpile of annual leave and its toxic impact on the wellbeing of business and employees.” “It doesn’t take … Continue reading “The retention of leave indicates a broken business”
Adam Sage has been following the suicides that have occurred in France Telecome for some time. On 23 September 2009 in the TimesOnline (a week later in The Australian newspaper??), Sage provides a useful summary and cogitation on the “cluster”. But although this number of suicides in one company should be alarming, it is not … Continue reading “23rd suicide at France Telecome in 18 months”
Businesses, more often than not, place OHS as a subset of the Human Resources Department. This gives the HR manager considerable organisational clout but often keeps the importance of OHS constrained. This structure may be functional but also reinforces that the belief that safety can be addressed in HR terms and that is not necessarily … Continue reading “HR management needs to engage with safety management”
Former Tasmanian MP, Paul Wriedt, has provided an Australian Sunday newspaper with a long article that provides the context for her suicide attempt, depression and career implosion. The full article is well worth reading and shows the combination of factors that led to her suicide attempt. Excessive workload is mentioned several times and, although it … Continue reading “Wriedt provides context of her depression”
Every country has its share of high-fliers who “burn out”. Many fade away from the public eye with their careers over. Frequently this path to wealth and prominence is not perceived as a workplace health or safety matter. Some people decide that the health trade-off of multi-million dollar salaries is worth it. Sadly the psychological … Continue reading “Maintain instead of repair”