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Tag: safety
Safety footwear needs more safety research
Safety footwear is a standard item of personal protective equipment (PPE) in many workplaces but it can be contentious.
The need for safety footwear
Some years ago I was asked to assess the need for safety footwear in a large manufacturing site. The need was obvious, there was a lot of manual handling of cumbersome objects and the factory was old so the design and layout was based on the lifting and moving of objects rather than a flow of production.
The company wanted this need verified as one of the office staff, clearly of some influence, would enter the factory in high heels and refused to wear safety footwear. This was a clear breach of the company’s safety policies and was causing unrest in the factory. The safety solution was clear
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Safety is the first agenda item but the last consideration
It is a common business activity to include Safety as an agenda item in all meetings. This is intended to show that a company sees Safety as an integral component of all business decisions. But such an action can also be used to dismiss Safety by those who do not see it as related to production or the production program.
Some years ago I was an occupational health and safety (OHS) adviser for a client on a construction project. The project had Safety as the first item of business on the weekly progress meeting. I was invited to attend and contribute. The Project Manager opened the meeting, asked if anyone had a “Safety Share”, and then advised that the project had had no incidents in the previous week.
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Attitudinal survey has promise but the restriction of data stifles discussion
The “Australia’s Behaviour Concerns” (ABC) survey has received a good deal of press in Australia this week as it provides so many options for each State’s media to report on concerns identified by the survey’s respondents. Of the thirty-eight concerns identified, three involve occupational health and safety (OHS) directly:
- Work Harassment
- Discrimination and Bullying
- Unsafe Work Practices.
One of the significant issues with such surveys and findings is that these measure perceptions of safety and not the reality. Community concerns may be high but may mostly reflect topical events, campaigns and advertising so in terms of verifying marketing and OHS awareness campaigns, the survey may be most useful. Continue reading “Attitudinal survey has promise but the restriction of data stifles discussion”
Fair Work Commission girds its loins for workplace bullying complaints
Official statistics on workplace bullying in Australia are notoriously unreliable. The Productivity Commission estimated the cost of workplace bullying with a huge margin of variation, between A$6 billion and A$36 billion annually. WorkSafe Victoria has indicated in the past that the number of interventions on workplace bullying is way below the number of workplace bullying complaints. On 29 October 2103, in a long discussion on workplace bullying the Australian Capital Territory’s Chief Minister, Katy Gallagher stated:
“According to reports from the Commissioner for Public Administration, reports of bullying and harassment have totalled 68 cases in 2010-11, 71 in 2011-12, and 118 cases in the financial year that has just passed, 2012-13. Proven cases of bullying have numbered four, eight 11 and 19 respectively. This amounts to complaints being made by 0.5 per cent of staff, and substantiated in relation to 0.08 per cent of staff.” (Hansard, page P3930, emphasis added)
These latest statistics, in conjunction with those previously reported, indicate that the perception of workplace bullying is much higher than the reality in Australia. Continue reading “Fair Work Commission girds its loins for workplace bullying complaints”
Truth, justice and the safe way
Many years ago the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) won a WorkSafe Victoria award for a colouring in book. From memory the book depicted construction work so that children could understand what their parents do while the kids are at school. Since that time many companies have produced safety calendars from children’s drawings and train companies have created safety jingles and animated videos about decapitation. On 28 October WorkSafeACT launched a comic book about Hazardman.
Dr Rob Long rips the campaign to shreds in a blog article,concluding with
“It is amazing that the Regulator can impose this indoctrination campaign on the school system and now we learn that Safe Work Australia is going to roll it out throughout Australia. Fantastic, what a wonderful way to prepare our children and inoculate them against the realities of risk.” Continue reading “Truth, justice and the safe way”
Measuring a safety culture
Defining safety culture is still a tricky proposition. Definitions can vary from what Global Safety Index quotes:
‘the product of individual and group values, attitudes and beliefs, competencies and patterns of behaviour that determine the commitment to, and the style and proficiency of, an organisation’s health and safety management’.
to the, arguably more functional, definition of
‘the way you work when nobody’s looking”.
Safety culture comprises a mix of personal values, corporate values, laws, norms, expectations, hopes, respect, dignity, care, amongst others. By assessing and linking these elements it should be possible to map or pictorialise a company’s safety culture.
Several years ago at a Comcare conference in Canberra, one speaker outlined leadership and safety culture of some sections of the public service in web, spider or radar graphs (example above). The image stuck with me, particularly after additional sets of data allowed for animation to show the evolution of culture and leadership in relation to specific interventions. The importance of being able to provide a visual image of safety culture should not be understated. Continue reading “Measuring a safety culture”