Comments

  • How does research evidence change the advice you give?
    Research like all other sources of information is up for scrutiny and interpretation. I think Jop's research and indeed the article in safeguard is good and useful however its applicability to the industry as a whole is unclear. The use of take 5s in all their various forms is often a customer requirement which is hard to negotiate out of when you are a contractor trying to win work. The take 5 usefulness is subjective and like all tools requires some sort of expectation to be set out before use otherwise the process is likely to drift from what is expected. Knowledge of this and all the things that are wrong with the take five process is a reminder to "set you table before you eat" and lay out what is expected and why. Clutter reduction is easy to say but harder to do if the contractor customer relationship is fragile, rule bound, and cost driven rather than built on a trusting communicative relationship.
  • Health and Safety Resourcing- Benchmarks
    Amber, Is your business part of the Business Leaders Health & Safety Forum? if so they have some great resources and also benchmark within and across industry
  • RCD & Test and Tag
    Rob, have asked around work and the general consensus is the tools and appliances should still be tested and tagged.
  • Senior Leadership Safety Walk Round Template
    Standardizing your question set will only add limited value even if the work is standardized and if it isn't then will add none. I think the key while be to encourage curiosity. I can send you a paper I wrote for our board and exec which is in word so you cand change, add, make better for your needs if it helps. Get in touch and i'll flick it through
  • Fatigue and second jobs
    Fatigue is a complex phenomenon. Dealing with it in this instance is possibly an opportunity to map out (maybe in a bow tie) what defenses you have in place that remove the opportunity of fatigue inside the workspace while acknowledging there are factors outside of work which contribute to fatigue. You need to think about where you actually have control and then introduce monitoring (in cab eye movement and others) around the fringe. While the law is the law creating an environment of honesty and openness might help you find second jobs in the current financial environment is larger than just the one individual. For us secondary employment is part of our negotiated employment agreement however the onus to report to work in a fit state is an employee duty.
  • D&A testing type
    Sounds like you need to have a conversation with @CK Rahi from Advance Diagnostics. She is incredibly helpful and knowledgeable on this topic
  • How to acknowledge (or even reward) outstanding effort?
    It really depends on the context of what you mean by "goes out of their way". If I assume you refer to a worker whose primary role has improving H&S as a secondary function. Then encouragement of their efforts should be recognized on a scale through recognition internally and possibly externally, an appropriately valued voucher, a bonus, or a promotion, depending on the gravity of the improvement.
  • Grad Dip in OHS Mgmt at SIT
    Hi, Sorry i can't comment on the Post grad programme at SIT but the one at VIC UNI is awesome
  • Measurement of H&S performance
    Hi Jeanne,
    The Business Leaders Safety Forum have a couple of papers on measuring what matters that are worth a read. The content and speed of reporting is something I am constantly working on and our reporting has evolved over the last 5 years. Reporting the positive is possible however you have to build the capacity or system to do so. We can currently report on percentage of work complete without damage to plant or injury to people but this like the LTIFR and is not really helpful unless you relate it to other tangible things like the complexity of work and ability to recover etc it will not be as useful as you want it to be.
    Attachment
    Delta Safety Scorecard May 2020 (255K)
  • Craig Marriott on developing an effective H&S strategy
    How do you ensure understanding across the entire business with language and perception differences (black line, blueline)?
  • Craig Marriott on developing an effective H&S strategy
    How do you achieve a balance between strategic direction from the leadership level and strategic input risk front line?
  • Sacrifical Rules & Requirements
    Andrew, great response and yes 3/4 at the moment. So let me give you another example then. Say you are an essential business and your asset is people. As parts of your asset get sick they cant be used but you choose to bring back (or at least offer) recently retired workers to maintain your capacity. In doing so you increase you risk exposure. Their are other things to consider also but I am interested in actual examples of others in where "in unprecedented times" they have removed rules to ensure they are maintaining there deliverables.
  • Developing a strategy for H&S

    In my experience strategic H&S plans fail for two reasons,
    1. They are too complex and no one can understand “the why” so no one buys in to the company direction
    2. They are not written with the input of those actually undertaking the day to day action so not a reflection of what is really going on at the coal face.
    We can all reference Iron Mike Tyson and say “everyone has a plan till they get punched in the face” trying to deflect why failure has happened and progress not made. But success shouldn’t depend on a rigid strategy either. Work evolves so why wouldn’t your H&S strategy. Simple, supple and supported is the easy road to incremental gains and therefore success.
    The H&S strategy needs to be adaptive just like the good people within the business.
  • Developing a strategy for H&S
    I think finding the time to think strategically is essential and part of a solution to get out of the reactionary cycle. A strategy is absolutely part of your WHY and needs to be a separate focus before the business folds it in as just park of what work is. It is hard but the juice is worth the squeeze!
  • Does anyone have a really good guide to what safety reps can do to add value to a business
    Hi,
    I think the most important thing for HSR’s to do is think outside their scope. H&S is just one part of what work is and to add value they need to learn Human Centred Design to learn how to ideate, iterate and intergrate ideas into solutions, the Cynefin framework to help understand resourcing and also how to pitch a business case on the whole cake not just the Safety slice.
    Hope this helps

    Respectfully yours
    Matt
  • Risk Assessment Matrix
    Bowtie, Risk Funnel, Cynefin Framework, Control effectiveness assessment, Work as done physical assessment are a few.
    Tools that help you more than identify and categorize but sort, prioritize and treat
  • Seeking feedback on safety differently guideline for SME's
    I would like to have a look please

    Happy to give feedback
  • Risk Assessment Matrix
    Its only my opinion but the risk matrix used for this discussion is only part of the tool in its entirety and therefore makes us subject to one sided evidence and risk averse. The matrix actually has a right side (or blue side) which represents opportunity. This is seldom discussed but important when seeking balance in discussing a businesses risk appetite or tolerance. The other issue we open ourselves up to as professionals in using a risk matrix is it gives the perception risk is fixed and doesn't flex across the scale with influences experienced at the coal face that lead our people to make adaptive capacity based decisions. Risk is not static in a relationship with a hazard so.. having a toolbox of Risk assessment tools is best.
  • H&S Committtee Objectives
    Hi, I think a key success for energising our H&S committees (called something else but branding is a separate issue) has been to ask them to look at the larger picture of work as a whole. Not just one piece of the pie but the recipe itself. We also record how many actions are closed by out H&S committees by region in the monthly report. So progress is trackable and tangible. We also give them some flex on what they want to do for training rather than just Rep 123
  • Using "days since last accident" signs
    Using the presence of a negative to state a positive is flawed in this instance and lazy as you are not deep diving into success which should be the larger data set. Work complete without damage to plant or harm to people. You are only looking at when things go wrong...put simply no one looks at the "all blacks" because of their errors, mistakes or exceptions. They study one of the most successful teams in the world because of their success, culture and belief systems. It is also important to note that this is a harder, longer term journey and with 2-3 year managers in influential roles focussed only on short termism a harder journey still. What are your intended outcomes and where are they currently in the business "bright spots" then how can you replicate them...