The paper Lessons Learnt From My Safety Jobs talks about the OHS and OHS related things I have learnt from my safety jobs. In this paper I elaborate on the major safety technical lessons learnt. OHS Problems Some of the problems I currently see with Occupational Health and Safety in Australia include these- There is only half-hearted leadership from government, unions and many companies with regard to safety. Admitting to being a cynic I suggest the rhetoric is not always accompanied by action. I suppose it is naive to think the tripartite partners can put aside their industrial and political agenda when discussing safety. There is a poor understanding in the community of the reasons why accidents occur. We are quick to make the assumption that the worker was careless, when one examines accidents carefully one identifies a range of work system factors that contributed to the accident as well, most of these work system factors are the responsibility of the employer at both common and statute law. Blaming workers for their careless behaviour is an emotionally appealing approach that is usually not all that productive in the bigger picture of preventing personal damage at work. It is often said about safety that it is just common sense, if this is the case why are we doing such a poor job of managing it in this country? I am reminded of an un-named Chinese philosopher who was reported to have said "The trouble with common sense is that it is never common and rarely sensible" The media emphasises personal fault in news releases about incidents and does not consider design and system issues that contribute to incidents. We do not have a centralised, consistent method of reporting and recording incident and disease statistics. How can we examine the beast and learn from it if we do not record and report it in a consistent manner? In business vast amounts of money can be spent on safety without really defining desired outcomes (I am not doubting peoples motives however, just their effectiveness) Government, unions and many companies treat safety as a second priority and industrial relations issues dominate. The standard of Occupational Health and Safety practitioner may not be as high as it could be The messages of past incidents are not utilised enough in safety decision making. For this to happen past incident information has to be collected, presented and organised in a useable manner. Major Lessons Learnt Get your rear end out of the office and in the field
The Good-Routine Matters 1. Supervisor and Manager Safety Training The following outlines one company’s approach to supervisor and manager learning. Hazard Identification / Risk Assessment / Hazard Control 4 hours For all levels of personnel Types of hazards Practical exercise recognising hazards Risk assessment-practical and theory using probability, consequence and exposure Practical and theory of hazard control using the hierarchy of controls Introduction to Occupational Health and Safety 1 day For leading hands, supervisors and managers (mandatory course to be promoted to a supervisor) Company safety policy and procedures Supervisor’s responsibility for safety Common law principles as they apply to safety management Workers compensation and rehabilitation Statutory obligations of supervisors Accident Investigation 2 days For members of accident investigation teams, leading hands. Supervisors and managers (mandatory course to be promoted to a supervisor) Size of the accident problem Myths & misconceptions about safety Influence of design on accident causation Cause versus essential factors
facilitated some team building interactive learning for OHS team members and believe such learning has significant benefit for both established and new teams. Teams are small groups of people with complementary skills who work together as a unit to achieve a common purpose for which they hold themselves collectively accountable. My web site ohschange.com.au discusses a number of safety related issues. An ex-manager of mine, who has a way with words, says the trouble with management and safety is that management and safety professionals sometimes engage in acts of public masturbation! I apologise if anyone finds the foregoing offensive but my belief is it is an admittedly crude, but accurate, way of describing some of the things I have seen happen in both safety and general management. The last thing I will leave you with are risk assessment and Zero Harm approaches to safety. I seriously question the effectiveness of both approaches and believe the safety people of the future will be amazed at why we believed in them so much. It will be interesting to hear what people are saying in 20 years time. I would like to finish by wishing you all the best. Nothing worthwhile is easy, but despite the occasional set back I have found OHS to be exceptionally rewarding and you end up meeting some great people. I have found using project teams has been a fantastic way of driving significant safety change. A final bit of advice is to have a well-developed bulldust detector; by the hell you will need it! The permanently life altering personal damage occurrences (Accidents) I have been associated Robotham Introduction During my 38 years involvement in OHS I have been associated with 13 fatalities, a case of paraplegia, a serious burns case and a major stress incident. The following are brief details of the permanently life altering personal damage occurrences (Accidents) I have been associated with and some close calls. With many it was good luck, not good management that more serious life altering personal damage did not occur. There are lessons to be learnt from personal damage occurrences, the reality is that these lessons are often not widely communicated and acted upon. We do not have a National system for reporting, recording and analysing permanently life altering personal damage occurrences, this seems to me to be a priority if we are serious about managing OHS. Taxonomies of industry personal damage occurrence experience are a fertile avenue for improvement.
A ex-manager of mine, who has a way with words, says the trouble with management is that management professionals sometimes engage in acts of public masturbation! I apologise if anyone finds the foregoing offensive but my belief is it is an admittedly crude, but accurate, way of describing some of the things I have seen happen in management. “People do not care about how much you know until they know how much you care” Geoff McDonald Geoff has been my coach, mentor, guide and adviser on OHS for in excess of 35 years and is one of the very few consultants on the safety scene who inspire much confidence in me. The following are examples of material I have written guided by Geoff. Safety Myths One important factor that influences how OHS is managed is the attitudes and of those leading the charge. This paper explores beliefs, philosophies, concepts and attitudes and suggests some common ideas may be incorrect or unhelpful, that is they may be myths and misconceptions. People cause accidents We would not suggest that people are not essential in personal damage occurrences (Accidents) but the people cause accidents myth and misconception is often used as an excuse for not carrying out positive action. What often happens is we blame the person and forget about making positive changes to the machine and the environment. There are few occasions when it is appropriate to blame the person for their past actions, this is only appropriate when the blame leads to change in the future. The people cause accidents philosophy has been reinforced in a number of ways over the years. Heinrich-Although this belief has been part of our culture for centuries, it received official sanction in the writings of Heinrich, widely held to be the father of the industrial safety movement in the 1930’s. His domino theory whereby unsafe acts, unsafe conditions, errors and hazards combine to produce incidents has tended to focus on the person to blame and has been a serious impediment to meaningful progress.
looking for “causes” you look for “essential factors” (An essential factor is one without which the final personal damage could not have occurred) There are good reasons why the term “cause” is not used. The idea is to look for essential factors where the various categories of the model above intersect. The model is very easy to use and usually at least 30 essential factors will be found in each personal damage occurrence. The author hears good reports on training in this technique conducted by Intersafe. American author Ted Ferry has written publications that provide practical, how to advice on this topic. Readers may find the advice on an investigation kit in Accident Investigation on ohschange.com.au of benefit. Analysis of “Accident” experience Many organisations analyse their “Accident” experience in the hope of gaining insight into how to prevent their problems. Most organisations will not have sufficient serious “Accident” experience to make statistically significant determinations. Damage to people at work has a number of adverse outcomes:- Financial loss to employer, worker and community Pain and suffering Dislocation of lives Permanence of death Damage to people from work falls naturally into one of three Classes. Class I damage permanently alters the person’s life and subdivides into fatal non-fatal Class II damage temporarily alters the person’s life Class III damage temporarily inconveniences the person’s life (Geoff McDonald & Associates) Taxonomy This is an incredibly simple technique that it is rare to find used. Essentially taxonomy is a collection of like. The most well-known taxonomy is the phylum of plants, their botanical names. Awhile back I was associated with taxonomy of the more significant personal damage occurrences in the Qld mining industry which I thought was particularly effective in setting priorities for the industry. It is important to do the taxonomy on an industry basis as it is