Management – Page 12 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

Raising awareness about stress instead of controlling it

In March 2011, in response to one of the several Stress Awareness Days, HRLeader magazine ran an edited version of a Personnel Today article called “5 steps to tackle employee stress”. The Personnel Today had “6 steps”, so are Australian readers being ripped off?

Personnel Today included a step called “Refer the Health and Safety Executive’s management standards”. HRLeader’s editor must have made the call that HSE information is geographically specific and therefore not relevant to Australia but the change is more indicative of the fact that Australia does not have anything to match the HSE management standards to help control stress. According to the HSE website:

“….the six Management Standards cover the primary sources of stress at work. These are:

Demands[1] – this includes issues such as workload, work patterns and the work environment. Continue reading “Raising awareness about stress instead of controlling it”

Australian Football’s corporate approach to OHS

Recently the CEO of the Australian Football League (AFL), Andrew Demetriou addressed a breakfast gathering in Melbourne on the issue of “OHS in the AFL”. He spoke almost entirely about policy initiatives without specifically addressing occupational health and safety but after a while we came to understand he was speaking of OHS from his senior executive perspective rather than the level where traditional control measures are implemented.

This was a legitimate approach to OHS but one that is rarely heard, perhaps because the AFL is a unique sporting body. There was no mention of concepts dear to the hearts of CEOs such as Zero Harm or Safety Culture. In fact there was hardly even a mention of Leadership.

Continue reading “Australian Football’s corporate approach to OHS”

Rolling the sleeves up – a good OHS technique.

My father has a smallish block up in the bush, north-east Victoria in the Ovens Valley. He can’t live there safely anymore, but since he built the place himself and with all the family history it has, it’s a place that has to be retained, and protected from bushfire as much as we reasonably can manage.

My partner and I, plus Dah (and a coupla friends) spent a few weeks there around Christmas and New Year doing lots of scrub clearing, garden things and general tidying up in readiness for the predicted return to hot dry summers after that naughty La Nina begins to fade. These sort of work trips have been going on over quite a few summers.

The big range of jobs on these tidying-up trips range from trimming large branches, working up on roofs, scrub clearing, lots of load shifting, burn-offs, using lots of different powered equipment (chainsaw, scrub-cutters) and dragging out cut scrub with the ute etc etc.

Doing this work has me often giving lots of thought to doing the job efficiently and safely, and observing my own safety stuff-ups. It gives me a chance to reflect on the safety system stuff we spend lots of time lecturing punters on and how practical it all is when there is limited time to get the job done, it’s 30 degrees Celsius, and the humidity is at a zillion; in other words, in work conditions lots of people have to deal with all the time. Continue reading “Rolling the sleeves up – a good OHS technique.”

Graphic hazard video from WorkSafe BC

Graphic ads or videos from OHS regulators are not new but each has their own approach and WorkSafe BC has released one, in particular, that is of interest to the construction industry.

On first viewing, the conduct of the supervisor is annoying. He provides inadequate information to the worker. He approves of the wrong tool for the job. Others may see nothing but a silly young worker. Continue reading “Graphic hazard video from WorkSafe BC”

The Asphyxiation of OHS

Good OHS thinking and practice are being slowly asphyxiated. By far most suggestions by workers, unions or good consultants for Health & Safety improvements are ‘choked’ by management naysayers and bureaucrats more in touch with their current minister’s moods than workplace reality. Not choked immediately or blatantly. In fact, that person may be patted on the back and encouraged to raise more OHS matters, “Yes, mate, good! Tell us what else we’re doing wrong, very very helpful. You just keep on telling us”…….. And slowly any significant discussion about OHS problems is suppressed and killed.

The majority of workers in Australia work in small workplaces where (typically) practical OHS programs are regarded by managers as a nuisance, a bit of ‘over-the-top’ nonsense that slows down productivity. It’s regarded as an irritant of fashion that will pass, like the fashion-related, politically correct things to say. Continue reading “The Asphyxiation of OHS”

Important OHS and legal issues in findings of South Australian Coroner into young man’s death

The debate on OHS laws will be passionate in the pre-election frenzy of New South Wales but the OHS law reform is a national strategy and the safety debate is not asleep in the other States.

On 11 February 2011, AAP ran an article about the long-lasting familial and social effects a horrible workplace incident in South Australia in 2004. Diemould Tooling Services (fined in 2009) took its appeal against prosecution to the High Court of Australia in 2008 and on 10 February 2011, almost six years after the death of 18-year-old Daniel Madeley, South Australian Coroner Mark Johns has said, at Madeley’s inquest:

“A horizontal boring machine had been operated at Diemould for years in a condition which could only be described as deplorably unsafe. It could have been guarded, but was not. It could have had a braking system, but did not. It could have had an automated lubrication system, but did not.

“Many other things could have been done, but any one of these would have been sufficient to save Mr Madeley’s life….”

Coroner Johns was very critical of SafeWorkSA about its actions following the 2004 death. The coroner’s findings make for disturbing reading on several issues. Continue reading “Important OHS and legal issues in findings of South Australian Coroner into young man’s death”

Safety rationalisation doesn’t end with an improving economy!

Guest contributor, Gerard May, writes

The economic circumstances an organisation finds itself in can greatly affect their approach to workplace health and safety. Tough economic times are still ahead for some industries and organisations, while others who rationalised for survival through the global financial crisis will begin to prosper. This article will delve into what may be happening to Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S) in organisations heading into both tough and improving economic times. The economy will play a role.

Rationalisation in the manufacturing industry appears likely as the Australian Industry Group’s Performance of Manufacturing Index showed nine out of the 12 sub-sectors in the industry went backwards in December 2010[1]. Pricewaterhousecooper‘s (PwC) Australian-based global head of industrial manufacturing, Graeme Billings, recently stated,

“In the face of…declines in activity and the continuing slump in new orders, it is imperative that businesses continue to search for efficiencies, improvements and innovative approaches to their markets, products and business models[2].”

OH&S will surely be in the sights of rationalisation in the sector.

Tag: Management

Raising awareness about stress instead of controlling it

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Australian Football’s corporate approach to OHS

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Rolling the sleeves up – a good OHS technique.

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Graphic hazard video from WorkSafe BC

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The Asphyxiation of OHS

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Important OHS and legal issues in findings of South Australian Coroner into young man’s death

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Safety rationalisation doesn’t end with an improving economy!

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