CSG Posts
It was a packed event in May including many first-time attendees, all of us eager to hear Claire Nivarovich. We were rewarded with a very interesting and practical presentation.
WorkSafe statistics show that only 54% of workers have returned to work 6 months after mental injury; by 2 years, 38% still have not returned to work. They also show that mental injury claims have been increasing steadily across all workplaces over the last 4 years.
As a result WorkSafe has been targeting initiatives to assist vulnerable workers and employers. These range from reducing the time to asses claims and creating videos and guidance notes to developing an online toolkit: Workwell Toolkit
Claire guided us through the toolkit, showing us how a dashboard can be tailored to the user and how to access a wealth of information. There are resources to deal with a wide range of situations; these include ways to implement prevention practices in your workplace. Claire's unit did a road test of the kit to ensure it offers practical and easily accessible advice.
Claire ended her talk with a call to action to those present: they are keen to receive feedback from employers, so give the toolkit a go!
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A large audience was fascinated by Kristen Richardson's presentation that contained very useful information about dealing with difficult customers. Ineterestingly, the majority of difficult customer interactions arises from the trauma of delivering hard messages that have life changing impacts on customers. However, the issue of customer aggression was the primary focus of Kristen's presentation and the most relevant to the CSG audience.
In the past the bank’s safety strategy was focussed on the risk of robberies, which informed both the design of branches and the staff's actions. Nowadays incidents of robberies have decreased dramatically and so the focus has needed to shift accordingly. The bank’s strategy has developed to become multi-faceted and flexible to deal with a range of scenarios.
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Through his presentation, Richard Greenwood opened our eyes about the hazards associated with combustible dust. Such hazards can slip under the radar, because these dusts are not classified as dangerous goods and therefore are not covered by any current chemical legislation. Examples include flour, coal dust, milk powder, sugar and plastics, which are potentially present in a huge number of workplaces, and yet there is poor workplace recognition of the hazard.
There is a complex set of circumstances that can lead to an incident, as Richard explained through his Explosion Pentagon that goes beyond the standard Fire Triangle. He demonstrated this via a video about an aluminium factory in the USA before then discussing an incident in Campbellfield, Victoria, where two workers were injured while undertaking routine maintenance.
Richard concluded by providing a number of takeaway messages, including how to address deficiencies in hot work permits, methods of housekeeping and design solutions.
As always, the presentation stimulated quite a bit of discussion; member Paul Burggraaf shared his knowledge and experience in working with plastic dust.
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A new year of presentations got off to a great start with a very informative talk from Rachel McGregor and Ebonie Martello of Safety People on the 12th February.
Their experience as OHS recruitment specialists meant they were able to give detailed insights into current trends, including salary trends for various OHS roles, including Safety Advisors, HSE Managers and consultants.
Of particular interest was their discussion about the move away from specialists and the increase in the demand for consultants. They also provided tips for supporting your OHS career.
Their presentation was followed by an extensive Q&A session, which covered such topics as:
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Networking at Parliament HouseMembers & guests of Central Safety Group enjoyed a wonderful Christmas networking lunch in the elegant surrounds of the dining room at Parliament House Victoria on Monday 10 December 2018.
For the second year in a row, this venue proved a great success. Everyone enjoyed the excellent service and delicious food featuring seasonal Victorian produce. Plus the special pleasure of having our own private area in the dining room so we could enjoy great conversations without competing with the usual clatter of a restaurant setting.
We hope to repeat the experience for our next Christmas lunch.
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Central Safety Group members present at the meeting on 9 October were amongst the first to hear about research conducted by Dr Ross Donohue of Monash University.
Ross shared some useful recommendations on improving safety inspections, including making them more standardised and measurable. To that end he has developed a 7-item generic checklist which could be applied widely.
The work Ross has done on this so far relates to inspecting for physical risk, and he is now planning research and recommendations on assessing psychosocial risk.
While we are unable to provide the presentation from this meeting, we do have a report on the presentation.
If you want to make sure you don't miss out on any of our great speakers, put the second Tuesday of the month in your calendar and come along to our meetings.
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CSG committee member Greg Splatt finished off our year of meetings with a very engaging presentation on the 13th November.
He spoke about some of the challenges with the influx of new workers into the construction industry during the current boom. These include shortfalls with the ticketing/licensing regime where there is little verification of real skills. It is also hard for workers, who are essentially involved in a creative industry, to be engaged in a classroom situation to learn OHS. Greg outlined ways to improve SWMS to address this particular challenge.
Greg also spoke extensively about his experience with an insurance builder in the aftermath of Cyclone Debbie in Queensland. There are many lessons to be drawn from these experiences that can be applied to general construction such as: how to respond to the unplanned?...Plan! During debrief, the KISS principal is applied, but in this case it refers to talking about what to Keep, Improve, Start and Stop.
There was plenty of lively discussion around the table at the end of the presentation as we delved into the parallels between post-disaster management and construction generally.
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Greg Splatt.
Throughout Australia there is unprecedented growth in all areas of construction – commercial, civil and residential. This boom has created issues relating to knowledge, skills and competencies needed at all levels of the construction workforce.
The issue of safety in this climate will be discussed by Greg Splatt, a construction safety manager and trainer, in a lunchtime presentation for Central safety Group on 13 November.
Greg says many people are coming into the industry with the promise of long-term work, long hours and good pay packets. But without the necessary industry experiences and know-how, what risk do they present on job sites? Challenges with safety understanding and experience can also exist at supervisor and manager level.
Greg will also speak about his experiences with the unique OHS challenges during extensive construction rebuilds after major events such as cyclones and bushfires.
Note: When booking for the Event, please ensure you select the November Meeting from the dropdown list (shaded orange), to RSVP to this meeting.
Professor David Caple is a popular annual speaker at Central Safety Group and has spoken on a range of topics. On 11 September a keen crowd attended his talk about the latest findings on the benefits of sit-stand desks.
He talked about changes in workplace design that have brought more variety into the use of sit-stand desks. However, there is also the need for people to have a better understanding of desk height and positioning, patterns of use and the appropriate posture, at which point the presentation became interactive when he had us all up trying it out.
David also outlined current research findings that disputed some of the earlier assumptions about the benefits of using these desks – including cardiovascular benefits and alleviating shoulder and lower back fatigue.
Once again David Caple's presentation proved why his appearance at Central Safety Group is always one of the highlights of the year.
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We had something special in July. The group enjoyed hearing a WorkSafe Inspector’s-eye view from speaker Les Cameron, who has worked in that role for over 20 years.
Les also gave a run-down on some current priorities and events happening at WorkSafe Victoria, including this year’s relocation of its Melbourne CBD head office with several hundred roles to Geelong.
Of particular interest to the audience was Les’s account of some of the problems he’d inspected, where lack of attention to small details had led to major incidents. In other examples, he showed how careless practices or ignoring the rules had put sites in serious danger. He also talked about some WorkSafe intervention programs currently being tested.
Unfortunately we are unable to provide the presentation from this meeting. If you want to make sure you don't miss out on any of our great speakers, put the second Tuesday of the month in your calendar and come along to our meetings.
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John Naughton shared his experiences of working with George Weston Foods to overhaul their contractor management system and bring it into the 21st century.
Being a large organisation with multiple sites across Australia, New Zealand and the Asia Pacific engaging more than 4,000 external contractors, there were particular challenges in streamlining the multiple systems that existed. However, any sized organisation could relate to his descriptions of ad hoc manual systems with the potential for frequent safety breaches.
The centralised electronic system he developed was tailored to the users and is so much more than a database. It was built as a management and compliance tool that allows everyone in the organisation to become a contractor manager. An example is the Permit To Work system that was built from the existing procedure then improved and can now be tracked easily. As John explained, centralisation = control.
The system has resulted in many safety improvements and the business gained a 600% return on investment in just 12 months.
The meeting provoked quite a bit of discussion as attendees were keen to dig down into the details of John's successful project.
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This paper about the role of safety professionals was hot-off-the-internet when it was mentioned at the CSG Meeting. It was written by Dave Provan, Sidney Dekker and Drew Rae and called “Benefactor or burden: Exploring the professional identity of safety professionals”. The abstract says: “Understanding the professional identity of safety professionals provides an important foundation for exploring their professional practice, and by extension, understanding organizational safety more broadly.”
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The state of OHS in VictoriaBased on his forensic research and analysis of data from WorkSafe Victoria, Barry Naismith presented some measured and thought-provoking findings to a packed room. Some findings are somewhat dispiriting, including the fact that this data can be inaccurate, shallow and lagging. Nevertheless, his presentation provided some interesting insights into trends in injury rates and claims, including mental claims.
He also took a clear-eyed look at the current push for wellbeing programs in the workplace and how these are grabbing the spotlight from OHS. He discussed the issue of whether wellbeing included both the physical and mental, and how we embed wellbeing into injury prevention.
Barry concluded with a call to OHS professionals to speak out if they see a need for things to change. "Don't just leave safety leadership to the regulator in these challenging and interesting times - times that are re-shaping OHS, hopefully for the better", he said.
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