Central Safety Group Melbourne

Recruiting and retaining OHS staff

It was a great start to a new year of presentations with Helen O'Keefe's insights into the OHS recruitment scene. As it happened to be St Valentine's Day, Helen gave her presentation a cute twist by drawing an analogy between the employee life cycle and a marriage, and it fitted surprisingly well. She covered the full gamut from recruitment as the dating phase; onboarding & retention equating to a marriage; and separation as a divorce. To avoid the latter, Helen gave several tips on how to maintain a happy marriage in the work sense.

She explained how January started as strongly as 2022 did, which had already broken records with the number of positions being advertised. In particular it is specialists that are being sought. Post lockdown candidates have become more selective, which is making recruitment harder. Position descriptions are changing as a result of this, so that they are more like an advertisement to attract people. Helen gave some practical suggestions about how to make a PD more attractive.

Helen also had some great tips during her presentation for retaining staff, and further tips came up during the engaging discussion afterwards. One fascinating insight was how important a platform like LinkedIn has become. Having an up-to-date profile is advantageous for both a candidate and a potential employer, because it can show how well-connected you are and the range of activities you are involved in. In fact, Helen predicts that CVs will become obsolete and will be replaced by a LinkedIn profile or similar.

Helen is such an enthusiastic speaker on her topic and the attendees really appreciated her expertise.

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5 top tips for successful auditing

What a great presentation this was as Ross demonstrated the qualities of the high-calibre speakers we have been able to bring you once again this year. His enthusiaism for the topic and incredible breadth of knowledge shone throughout the presentation. As he said himself, he could have spoken for hours.

The tips he discussed were around scheduling, planning, the audit interview, evidence and corrective action, and he showed how they can be applied to variously sized organisations. The tip he concentrated the most on was the third one, the audit interview, because this is the area most people struggle with. He talked about strategies to put people at ease and emphasised that the core aim of an audit is to verify risk controls and not to trip people up. I certailny felt that, if I were about to be audited, I would like it to be done by Ross.

During the discussion after his presentation, Ross mentioned that he had discovered surprising advantages with "zoom" audits, so it is good to find a silver lining from the pandemic restrictions of last year.

One of the comments from an attendee in the zoom chat sums up perfectly the standard of this presentation: "Great to hear what you have learnt throughout your years of auditing. Love the positive approach."

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CSG 60th Anniversary

Date & Time: FRIDAY 14 October 2022 at 12:00pm 

PLEASE NOTE: In person @ Parliament House Event:

Speakers: Dr Narelle Beer, Executive Director of Health and Safety, WorkSafe Victoria; and Barry Naismith from OHS Intros.

Compere: Professor David Caple AM

Join us in the grand surroundings of Parliament House Victoria to celebrate CSG’s 60 years of networking and continuous service to the OHS community. Hosted by David Caple AM, with speakers Dr Narelle Beer (ED WorkSafe Victoria) and Barry Naismith, and a delicious meal showcasing the state’s fresh produce....read more

Note: RSVP by close of business Friday 7 October 2022. 

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Ben Thomson

Date & Time: Tuesday 13 September 2022 at 12:00pm 

PLEASE NOTE: ONLINE ZOOM Event:

Speaker: Ben Thomson, Safety Manager, Flight Academy Australia.

Topic: When a company is small and risks are high

Aviation demands particularly sound safety management systems and behaviours. Ben Thomson, Safety Manager for Flight Academy Australia (FAA), a light aircraft pilot training business, faces special challenges with instructors and students from a wide range of backgrounds...read more

Note: RSVP by close of business Monday 12 September 2022.  When booking, please ensure you select the September Event from the dropdown list (shaded orange), to RSVP.

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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 Melbourne 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 

PLEASE NOTE: ONLINE ZOOM Event:

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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