October Updates
Axento Safety provides you with health and safety expert witness and risk management solutions to enhance your business success.
In addition to expert witness services, Axento Safety’s focus is to help create safe, healthy, innovative AND PRODUCTIVE workplaces. Axento Safety partner with you to take the pain out of health and safety, provide safety management systems, reduce the paperwork, achieve certifications, enable increased compliance, enable productivity improvement and achieve this cost effectively. Contact Jon Temby to grow your business and make your life easier.
Free health and safety seminars available during October
Throughout October, Safe Work Australia will host a series of free online seminars that showcase the latest thinking, innovation, research and developments in work health and safety. Broadcast daily as part of National Safe Work Month, the Virtual Seminar Series features business leaders, academics and work health and safety experts sharing ideas, experiences, skills and knowledge to improve the lives of Australian workers. An initiative under the Australian Work Health and Safety Strategy, the seminars are interactive and will involve live broadcasts and online Q&A sessions. Each seminar will be accompanied by a range of work health and safety resources including case studies, research and data. View the Virtual Seminar Series program. To participate in the Virtual Seminar Series, visit the Safe Work Australia website throughout October.
Jons Comment: Last year’s ‘Virtual Seminar’ series were excellent, I understand that this year’s seminars are better still. Use this opportunity to select those seminars most relevant to your needs and encourage your staff to see them. You could use them as a trigger for new health and safety initiatives and improved health and safety performance.
WorkSafe Week (Victoria) 19-28 October
Now is the time to book in to the free sessions available from 19-28 October “WorkSafe Health and Safety Week – Talk Safe, Think Safe and Work Safe. There are more than 50 free seminars from industry experts and high-profile keynote speakers. Sessions are presented in Melbourne and many regional centres. The program is accessible from: http://worksafeweek.worksafe.vic.gov.au/events.
Jons Comment: This is the key opportunity for Victorian based organisations to raise awareness, build in-house skills and initiate activities to improve health and safety performance. Encouraging your Health and Safety Reps to attend and attending yourself is recommended.
Vic: Dingley company’s appeal over $375,000 fine dismissed
A Dingley engineering company which had been fined a total of $375,000 after three employees were injured in separate incidents recently had its appeal dismissed by the Court of Appeal. Read more…
Jons Comments: This company’s cynical disregard for worker safety after repeated injuries has come home to roost, it serves them right. I wouldn’t want my children to work for them.
What does the future of OHS look like?
A society which is increasingly sceptical about risk in the workplace is one of the strategic, long-term issues for the OHS profession, according to an international safety expert. Read more…
Jons Comments: It is great to see that others are thinking along these lines. This article reflects my strong belief that the widespread move towards a primary focus on OHS/WHS compliance is deeply flawed. I am currently developing a paper talking about employee engagement through skill development, coaching, communicating and facilitating with a focus on good business management that results in being more competitive, productive and innovative as well as having everyone looking out for each other and working safely every day. This integrated management focus provides adequate compliance as a bonus outcome, rather than as a short term focus without the sustainable benefits.
How to drive safety through employee engagement
Employee engagement is critical to embedding a culture of safety in organisations, according to the Australian Industry Group. Read more…
Jons Comments: At the AIG are publicly saying the same things that I have been pushing in recent years “Engaged employees stand apart from their not-engaged and actively disengaged counterparts by the discretionary effort they consistently bring to their roles”. “These employees willingly go the extra mile, work with passion, and feel a profound connection to their company. They are the people who will drive innovation and move your business forward.” Well targeted health and safety initiatives are one of the easier ways to start generating employee engagement with all its benefits to the individual as well as the employer. Please call me if you would like greater employee engagement.
New code requires drug and alcohol testing policies on construction sites
The Federal Government recently introduced amendments to the Building Code which now require drug and alcohol testing on construction sites. Read more…
Jons Comments: This initiative follows a similar requirement under the former Victorian Construction Code. Whilst I have not seen the liquid lunches on construction sites in recent years, alcohol and other drugs must still be a significant issue for employers in construction and may be so for many employers in other industries as well. Perhaps it is now time to review your Alcohol and other Drugs policies and procedures.
ACT: “fit notes” introduced for GP’s and injured workers
The government recently announced a new ‘fit note’ to help get sick and injured employees back to work for use by all GPs in the ACT and surrounding region, before a potential national expansion. Read more… The ACT government recently announced a new certificate of capacity which focuses on the patients’ capacity for work, rather than their incapacity. The initiative is part of Comcare’s health benefits of work programme which advocates that a timely, supported return to work for people with injury and illness reduces disability.
Rather than focussing on limitations, the new certificate focuses on capacity for work and encourages doctors to consider options including a graduated return to work, modified duties and, where necessary, reduced hours.
Jons Comment: This initiative should assist both the injured worker as well as their employer to identify the best means to safely return to work. It promotes prompt recovery as well as boosting morale and productivity, an additional bonus is that it helps to keep Workers Comp premiums under control. The sooner it is rolled out across Australia the better.
$400,000 fine over Traffic Management Failure causing death
One of Australia’s largest packaging and resource recovery companies, Visy Paper, has been fined more than $400,000 following the death of a worker in 2012. Read more…
Jons Comment: Prevention is preferable to prosecution and is always cheaper. This tragic incident could have been avoided with better traffic management. Employers need to minimise costs: I support and can assist that objective but it must be done in the context of informed risk management. Immediately following most incidents that are associated with those sometimes false economies, all the improvements that should have been implemented are implemented. This necessary action is also a demonstration that controls were known, available and practicable. On top of that we have a fatality or other serious incident, a significant loss of employee morale and productivity, masses of lost time from all involved and often significant investigation, legal and reputational costs. Many smaller companies are bankrupted as a result of an incident. How are you tracking with your prevention program? If you need assistance to identify and prioritise your risks, please contact me. I repeat: prevention is preferable to prosecution and is always cheaper.
Prosecution results summaries
WorkSafe Victoria has updated the prosecution summaries web page. These summaries include the prosecution of a demolition contractor as a result of an employee falling through plasterboard and down approximately six metres into a stairwell. See link for more information. Read more…
Jons Comments: It is sad to see the consistency of the failures demonstrated by these prosecutions: “Failure to provide a safe working environment”; “plant guarding”; “failure to conduct a risk assessment” –or failure to provide training, supervision, safe work method statements etc; “failure to notify an incident”; crushing injuries from forklifts etc.
I am currently involved with a fatality prosecution, it too was totally avoidable and the massive trauma to lots of people would not be currently occurring had some minor changes been made. Prevention is usually relatively simple and cheap. Responding to a fatality or other serious incident is always very expensive, not just in dollar terms but especially psychologically for all involved. This can involve a lifetime of guilt and wishing to yourself “If only I had…”. I would like to help you avoid that trauma.