Central Safety Group Amsterdam

When a company is small and risks are high

In a refreshing change, we heard about a specific industry this month when Ben Thomson from Flight Academy Australia presented to us. While it was fascinating in itself to learn more about the subject of aviation safety, it was inspiring to learn about ways of instilling a better safety culture into smaller organisations more generally.

Ben began by giving a brief overview of the evolution of safety approaches. It was interesting to see how it began with "airmanship", which focussed on the individual, and gradually evolved to the holistic approach of a full-blown safety management system that they have today, where the focus is on the culture.

Ben outlined some new thinking into the 5 ingredients of an effective safety culture that are really useful for all organisations, no matter the size. The one that resonated most with us was the concept of a Just Culture and Ben delved into that, particularly in relation to incident reporting. One of the main challenges is encouraging people to admit when they've made a mistake, because it is counterintuitive for people to do so. The way an organistaion responds has an effect on the value that can be derived from reporting.

Another challenge with reporting is if the process to do so is overly complicated: while it's important to document incidents, it shouldn't be too onerous for the person reporting. This put me in mind of a great presentation a few years ago from David Provan about Safety Clutter, which complements Ben Thomson's advice for smaller organisations. Financial members can access it here.

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OHS and Social Sustainability

Long-time financial member Phil Lovelock gave a really interesting presentation about social sustainability, which is part of the UN Global Compact and yet , according to Phil, seems to have become the forgotten pillar of sustainability (environmental and economic being the other two pillars). There is no information about this on either the Federal or Victorian WorkSafe sites, even though it is the primary duty of government.

However, businesses can and should do their part as well. As is often the case, OHS practitioners are ahead of the game and are already contributing to social sustainability. Phil gave a couple of case studies of larger organisations that are making contributions, but posed the question about how SMEs can also address this important pillar.

One of Phil's suggestions was to embrace external engagement, such as your very own Central Safety Group that not only has a range of resources, but also a network of OHS professionals. Certainly having members of such calibre and experience as Phil, who share their insights, highlights once again the value of our network.

Please note, that the sound quality of the video is not great this month, but the accompanying slides are comprehensive and provide plenty of information.

If you would like to learn more about the UN Global Compact on social sustainability, click here.

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Return to Work – What research is telling us

This was a fascinating presentation, in which Dr Carys Chan was able to take us through some very detailed research in a really accessible manner.

Carys is one of the authors of a paper commissioned by Safe Work Australia and published last year, entitled "Response To Injury: Research to support workers’ psychological responses to injury and successful return to work". It is an 88-page report that gathers research from the past decade, and Carys was able to give us a concise summary of the main findings and recommendations that certainly piqued the interest of all present.

It is good to know that Australia is doing reasonably well in this area compared with the rest of the world though, of course, there is still room for improvement. Carys explained how a multi-disciplinary approach is the most impactful in achieving success. She also spoke about enhancers to return to work, such as removing the stigma of disability and ensuring role clarification.

Other enhancers include characteristics of the person themselves, one of which is education. I was intrigued by this and followed it up with Carys during question time. I wanted to know if that meant a person's level of education or rather how much they have been educated in the RTW process. Carys said it was actually the former: the higher the level of education, the better the RTW outcome. As an example, someone who has learnt that failure is a part of success will have a more positive approach. I thought that was a really valuable message.

If you would like to read the whole research paper, click here.

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Phil Lovelock

Date & Time: Tuesday 9 August 2022 at 12:00pm 

PLEASE NOTE: ONLINE ZOOM Event:

Speaker: Phil Lovelock, Senior Health, Safety and Wellbeing Consultant and Policy Advisor, VCCI.

Topic: TBA

Details coming soon.

Note: RSVP by close of business Monday 8 August 2022.  When booking, please ensure you select the August Event from the dropdown list (shaded orange), to RSVP.

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OHS without borders – helping overseas

One of the silver linings for CSG over the last couple of years has been the introduction of zoom events, which have allowed us to expand our scope beyond the Amsterdam CBD, both with our members as well as our speakers. This could not have been illustrated better than by our June event, where Jason Green, speaking from Sydney, opened our eyes to the situation in parts of the world well beyond ours.

Workplace Health Without Borders began in Canada in 2011 and the Australian branch is its newest. Their activities are aligned with UN Sustainable Development Goals and consist primarily of mentorship, equipment donations, accredited training as well as policy and advocacy.

These activities focus on developing countries where a great proportion of the workforce is in the "informal" economy, and where there is a severe shortage of occupational hygienists and practitioners.

When Jason took us through some recent projects, it was astounding to think that there are countries grappling with hazards that we have already dealt with here, sometimes for a long time. This includes the use of lead paint in some African countries, asbestos in Indonesia and the issue of silicosis in Tanzania. It is clear that practitioners in Australia would have a great deal of expertise they could offer in these and other areas.

If you are interested in volunteering some of your time or finding out more about their work, check out the Workplace Health Without Borders Australian branch website here.

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Dr Carys Chan

Date & Time: Tuesday 12 July 2022 at 12:00pm 

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Speaker: Dr Carys Chan, Research Fellow, Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing, Griffith University

Topic: Return to Work – What research is telling us

What are the psychological effects of workplace injury? How can an understanding of this help employers support workers’ return to work? Research findings on this will be discussed in a Zoom presentation on 12 July by Dr Carys Chan of Griffith University, one of the authors of a recent paper commissioned by Safe Work Australia.

The aim was to advance knowledge and generate recommendations for Safe Work Australia’s National Return to Work Strategy 2020-2030. Safe Work Australia develops national policy to improve WHS and workers’ compensation arrangements across Australia...Read more

Note: RSVP by close of business Monday 11 July 2022.  When booking, please ensure you select the July Event from the dropdown list (shaded orange), to RSVP.

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Ethics in safety

This was such an interesting presentation that challenged us to look at the broader scope of our profession. In the words of Keith Govias, OHS professionals are moral change agents, and an ethical charter is a core element to their identity.

Discussions on ethics can be quite theoretical, but Keith put a very practical slant on it. While he began by explaining some complex theories, he did it in such a way that they could be understood and applied. Each of the 5 theories produces a different way of approaching ethics in business, such as the most common, which is a cost-benefit analysis. Keith showed us how to look beyond this.

One of the most interesting parts for me was when he discussed how to apply an ethical framework to incident investigation, to create a just culture that doesn't focus on worker error.

Another fascinating topic was the discussion of ethics versus following the law, and how mandatory vaccination policies pose an ethical conundrum.

Keith also discussed a number of valuable free resources available, such as ethical counsellors, the Body of Knowledge chapter on ethics that you can access here, and of course, networks such as your own Central Safety Group.

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New psychological hazard regulations

There is clearly a great deal of interest in this topic judging by the turnout. It was also invaluable to have Tracey speaking to us, because she was a representative for Ai Group on a working group that reviewed WorkSafe Victoria’s proposed OHS Amendment (Psychological Health) Regulations.

She expressed frustration that jurisdictions are forming their own codes rather than adopting the National Code. However, we have seen this occur with other hazards, so I suppose it is not that surprising.

Ai Group have a few concerns about the draft Victorian regulations. The first is about the heirarchy of controls, where information, instruction and training are the lowest order control. While this is appropriate for physical hazards, such as manual handling, it is not really applicable for psychological hazards in their view.

Another issue is the section on Prevention Plans: Ai Group has asked for much more detail to be given about those, because the draft code gives scant guidance on this topic.

They are also concerned about reporting requirements, including the need to report twice a year as well as the notion of notifiable incidents. While it is self-evident that Tracey is speaking on behalf of employers, I would love to hear the employees' and union perspective on this, as I suspect they would have very different views.

Public comment on the proposed regulations closed on 31 March, but you can read the initial proposed draft along with 79 submissions here: https://engage.vic.gov.au/proposed-psychological-health-regulations

During discussion after the presentation Tracey gave us a timeline for the legislation: penalties will not come into effect until 2024; the Regulations are due to be released in July 2022, while the Compliance Code is due in October 2022. For the latter there will be just 2 weeks allowed for public comment, so keep an eye out for that.

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Keith Govias

Date & Time: Tuesday 10 May 2022 at 12:00pm 

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Speaker: Keith Govias, Principal Consultant - Workplace Risk, Gallagher

Topic: Ethics in Safety

Keith Govias will talk about Ethics in Safety. Keith is an OHS professional who has held a Fairfax Fellowship in Ethical Leadership.

More details coming soon.

Note: RSVP by close of business Monday 9 May 2022.  When booking, please ensure you select the May Event from the dropdown list (shaded orange), to RSVP.

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Jason Green

Date & Time: Tuesday 14 June 2022 at 12:00pm 

PLEASE NOTE: ONLINE ZOOM Event:

Speaker: Jason Green, President, Australian branch - Workplace Health Without Borders

Topic: TBA

Jason will be talking about how the OHS community here can get involved.

More details coming soon.

Note: RSVP by close of business Monday 13 June 2022.  When booking, please ensure you select the June Event from the dropdown list (shaded orange), to RSVP.

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