Safety Conference Highlights Part 2
Last month Gary Rowe shared some of the highlights from the annual conference hosted by the Australian Institute of Health and Safety (AIHS) on the Gold Coast with over 700 attendees. Gary continues with the below highlights, including the “Dreamworld safety experience”
95% Firms with Fatalities had ISO Certification
Some interesting statistics about fatalities and ISO certification include:
Fatality rates in almost every country are stubbornly stable, while the incidence of lesser health and safety cases continues to drop.
95% of Singapore firms who experienced fatal accidents had ISO certification.
If systems alone worked fatal accident rates would improve.
Leadership is important eg have clear values and build the desired culture.
People only take in about 17% of what they are told.
Systems, like ISO processes, are needed but need to be matched with a supporting safety culture.
50% of AI References are Fake
Professor Maureen Hassall of the University of Queensland provided some surprising facts about the use of AI in workplace safety including:
Study has found about half of AI references are false or made up, so exercise caution with research.
AI can be good at checking the quality of inspections vs number of inspections eg AI can confirm all inspection items are checked by cross checking text and supporting documents or photos uploaded.
Fatigue is over-used as a cause of incidents. Generally, it is not fatigue but lack of vigilance, which humans are terrible at doing reliably for long periods of time when nothing of significance is happening.
Legal Realities
Steve Bell of the top tier legal firm, Herbet Smith Freehills, provided a sobering review of how the workplace safety law operates in Australia.
Don’t get emotional - Workplace safety laws are not objectively good or bad, but factual matters passed by parliament, which are demanding for business.
You don’t need criminal intent to be guilty of a workplace safety breach eg many workers and managers think they will not be prosecuted because they are good people and simply doing their job.
Only 5 minutes of careless behaviour resulted in a recent $3m fine for workplace manslaughter, even though the court acknowledged the case did not involve systemic or deliberate intent to put others at risk. Scary lesson – we are all only 5 minutes away from a manslaughter charge. Q. Who amongst us has never done something risky or careless in their life?
SWMS generated by AI (artificial intelligence) are often inadequate.
New trend to pursue executives eg recent cases include 22 against officers.
Legal professional privilege often not engaged quickly enough to protect individuals on the legally valid and ethical corporate interests.
Work at home arguments often spiral down to trivial matters not in control of the employer eg what if a person working at home trips over their own dog? Top tip – focus on the things the business can and should control.
Enforceable Undertaking Case Study
Executives from the construction firm Hansen Yuncken, explained their logic in seeking an enforceable undertaking following a fatal accident at one of their sites.
CEO, George Bardas, outlined how the tragic accident occurred and the dangers of casual truck unloading practices.
George questioned “What is the value to the community if we simply paid a fine?” So he developed a four year program to help identify common construction risks and communicate them to workers in way they quickly and easily understand and act to control the risk.
The accident investigation found work done was not per work as imagined (WAI) eg the official procedure. This appears to be a common deficiency in the rush to complete tasks in construction.
A parting comment included “if construction is cheap (profit driven) then something will drop eg OHS standards”. This highlights the ongoing challenge (peril) of extremely competitive tendering, which is so prevalent in the construction industry.
Safety Culture is the Collective Behaviours
Many people confuse personal behaviour with business culture. The safety culture of the business is about the collective behaviours which are driven or guided by the ingrained organisational values. Often this is simply explained as the way we do business here.
Organisations, particularly large ones, can have different cultures in different departments or sites eg work as silos, so we should not assume one culture exists.
The base for measuring safety culture includes fairness and personal perceptions eg safety climate survey. Measure culture as a system, not a score eg risk tolerance, resilience, anti-fragility, and high performance.
Q. Do we get stronger under stress? Many aspects of normal life-challenges benefit people, so some stress is inevitable and largely beneficial.
Safety Leadership
Traditional approach assumes:
Everyone has the same capability, interest and retains 100%.
There is only one true way to control hazards eg SOP.
Rules are there to control people.
We have good systems eg paper safe, which gives a false sense of security.
Modern approach:
Work is social
Workers are a resource to harness - not a problem to control, per Sidney Dekker
Calibrate risk tolerance through values
Build collective trust eg integrity
Empower teams
High reliability organisations are constantly uneasy
Know workers only retain small amounts of information
De-clutter and de-centralise
Praise team and individual effort
Leadership is a shared responsibility.
