What Safe Work Australia’s 2024 Report Tells Us About Safety in the Workplace
Safe Work Australia’s latest report on work health and safety (WHS) shows we’ve come a long way, but also reminds us of the work still to be done. While Australia’s work-related injury rate has dropped to 3.5%, much lower than the global average, there are still serious risks, especially in certain industries. Work-Related Fatalities and […]
Person-Centred Process: Designing Safety with User Experience in Mind
We rely on processes to complete tasks efficiently and reliably, to demonstrate compliance with industry regulations, and to define the roles, responsibilities and accountability for safety within an organisation. Yet, processes can also lull us into a false sense of security. Let me explain what I mean with a question. If a person has a […]
New report released in collaboration with the Queensland Commissioner for Resources Safety & Health
The state of safety reporting culture in Queensland’s mining industry report presents the responses of more than 7500 Queensland mine workers to an industry-wide survey which aimed to identify strength and opportunity areas to achieve a strong safety reporting culture. The report, co-authored by Sentis, shows that Queensland’s mine workers are encouraged to report their […]
How Repeat Safety Assessments Drive Organisational Health
The importance of tracking your safety culture and climate Just as a routine health check-up safeguards your wellbeing, continual assessments of your safety culture and climate play an equally critical role in ensuring a thriving and secure workplace. These evaluations provide a looking glass into the collective beliefs, values and perceptions about safety within your […]
The New Frontier in Workplace Health and Safety: Taking the Lead on Psychosocial Safety
In 2023 and beyond, psychosocial risk management is expected to be a top priority on workplace agendas due to the release of Safe Work Australia’s model Code of Practice, ‘Managing psychosocial hazards at work’ (and the landmark ISO 45003 global standard, released in 2021). The release of this new code has been hailed as the […]
Underreporting and the Implications for Serious Injury Management
Incident underreporting impacts the number of serious injury fatalities and incidents within organisations. A recent analysis of over 2,000 incidents and near misses within mining and engineering services shows that one in five incidents have a serious fatality outcome potential. Yet many organisations struggle to classify serious incidents, and as a result, about 45% of […]
Leadership style crucial to tackling the great workforce divide in utilities
An ‘us versus them’ environment fuels a negative safety culture Utilities are an essential service in the community. Neighbourhoods across the country rely on them to keep switching their lights on, run water from a tap and dispose of their rubbish. Proud of their contribution, workers across this sector are dedicated to a ‘job well […]
Safety Citizenship: The Gold Standard of Safety Culture
Organisations need to invest in all four dimensions of safety culture to effectively manage risk and create a strong and positive safety culture. But what does good look like? And how do you get there? Safety citizenship is the gold standard of safety culture. It represents a significant opportunity for organisations to capitalise on their greatest asset—their […]
Understanding Safety Culture: A Simple Model
Safety culture is an organisations’ shared attitudes, values and beliefs about safety in the workplace—essentially, ‘the way this are done around here’. It influences safety performance and is also a significant factor in predicting the likelihood of safety incidents. In any safety culture there are four overarching dimensions—environment, practices, person and leadership—and organisations need to […]
