The Noggin Blog

The modern workforce is changing and changing fast. Nowadays, most firms – from industry incumbents to plucky startups – employ third-party contractors to perform essential business tasks.

The story is well known. Hazardous substances were long bedrocks of the industrialized, global economy. But subsequent advances in environmental and health science caused a reevaluation of the use of hazardous waste in industry. In turn, governments installed thoroughgoing regulatory regimes to safeguard the health of workers, especially in heavy industry.

Spare a thought for your lone workers. After all, they’re likely your highest-risk employees. And without your active intervention, they might end up in harm’s way.

Enhancing the future for health and safety professionals, SAFETYconnect 2019, brings new papers from local and international experts to the expo floor. A premium exhibition featuring the latest products, services, and technology solutions in the ever-changing WHS sector, the two-day event attracts senior WHS and business professionals from a broad range of industry sectors, including transport, construction, education, infrastructure, manufacturing, mining, utilities, government, and more. And the best part…

As a Safety leader, you’ve probably built a strong portfolio in the organisation. So too has your counterpart in Security. And now both of you see key safety and security priorities, like keeping employees safe at work or mitigating threats to facilities and people, reflected at the highest levels.

Safety incident reporting rates remain persistently low, despite the costs (measured in eventual safety incidents) being so high. The question for Safety teams is why, why are their safety reporting rates stuck in the doldrums?

In the last decade, Australia made serious strides to update its occupational health and safety regulations to the modern era. A pillar concept propounded by the safety policy makers who crafted the subsequent model Work Health and Safety Act: that principal duty holders (or PCBUs) have the primary responsibility for the health and safety of their workers and any other workers under their influence (e.g. contractors). 

Safety reporting rates remain stubbornly low, especially in high-risk sectors, like construction, mining, shipping, etc. Taken alone, these low reporting rates would be reason enough for concern. Remember, chronic underreporting and the devaluing of near-miss analysis don’t conduce to creating a thriving safety culture. But underreporting safety incidents have major cost implications, too. Here’s the cost of underreporting safety incidents.

Conservative estimates of safety underreporting rates show the global total around 25 percent. That’s a full quarter of workplace incidents go underreported.

In Australia, environmental health and safety risk is getting critical. On the contemporary events broadcast, A Current Affair, respiratory physician, Dr Ryan Hoy singled out the silicosis crisis, calling it “unprecedented” – even warning that silicosis was worse than asbestosis.