Effect of creative thinking on OHS committees
- Authors: Culvenor, John , Ayers, Gerard
- Date: 2002
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Occupational Health and Safety, Australia and New Zealand Vol. 18, no. 3 (2002), p. 239-246
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: An important principle of Australian OHS law is that workers participate in the management of health and safety via OHS committees and representatives. A further principle is that workplaces engage in problem solving processes according to a hierarchy of hazard control - rather than simply following prescriptive rules. The OHS committee is therefore a problem-solving forum. However, the benefits of problem- solving or creative thinking techniques within committees have not been widely explored. To test the effects, two OHS committees from two construction companies were trained in a combination of creative thinking and risk control concepts. Subjects were tested on their ability to generate solutions and to rank solutions. They were compared with untrained subjects from two further committees. The results showed that the trained subjects generated more solutions and, when ranking solutions, showed a greater preference for solutions which were higher on the hierarchy of controls. (author abstract)
- Description: 2003003032
Comparison of team and individual judgements of solutions to safety problems
- Authors: Culvenor, John
- Date: 2003
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Safety Science Vol. 41, no. 6 (2003), p. 543-556
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: Knowledge about how best to solve problems in occupational health and safety and how to be innovative in general is important to all industry. With the advent of non-prescriptive workplace safety legislation in Australia (and internationally), the need for problem solving at an enterprise level has never been greater. The legislation calls for problem solving to take place via a cooperative approach between employers and employees and this manifests itself as committees, risk improvement teams and the like. Unfortunately research in problem solving generally has showed us that interacting teamwork is less effective that individual thinking in terms of generating solutions to problems. However, there has been little research on the comparison of individuals and teams as regards the decision-making stage of problem solving that must naturally follow the idea generation stage. This research compared individuals and teams based on decision-making in health and safety. Subjects were 294 manufacturing industry employees arranged into 38 teams. Subjects ranked solutions to safety problems individually and then repeated the exercise in teams where they sought to develop a team consensus. The average of individual judgements were compared with the team consensus judgements in a paired design. The results indicate that the consensus judgement of the teams was much better than the average of the individuals that comprised the team. The implications are that, while idea generation is probably best achieved individually, judgements and decision about solutions is probably best performed through a consensus approach.
- Description: 2003003023
Concepts of accident causation and their role in safe design among engineering students
- Authors: Hall, Stephen , Culvenor, John , Cowley, Stephen , Else, Dennis
- Date: 2007
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: Paper presented at 18th conference of the Australasian Association for Engineering Education, Melbourne, Victoria : 9th-13th December 2007
- Full Text:
- Description: Safe design is a strong theme at present in Australia. To ‘eliminate hazards at the design stage’ is one of the five national priorities set out by the National OHS Strategy. The Australian Safety and Compensation Council have recently released both a guideline for safe design and an engineering education package. Safe design is not only about engineering decisions. Engineers are however an important group. This paper reports on a survey to evaluate perceptions of student engineers on topics relevant to the advancement of safe design including perceptions of: control versus fatalism; accident causation; and perceptions of the role played by engineers.
- Description: 2003004787
Meaningful and effective consultation and the construction industry of Victoria, Australia
- Authors: Ayers, Gerard , Culvenor, John , Sillitoe, Jim , Else, Dennis
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Construction Management and Economics Vol. 31, no. 6 (2013), p. 542-567
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: Consultation between employers and employees is mandated under Australian occupational health and safety legislation. For consultation to be considered meaningful and effective, it is generally accepted that moral and ethical principles such as trust, honesty, commitment and respect need to be recognized and applied by individuals during consultation. It is also considered that an organization's level of cultural maturity is an important element in the ability of individuals to freely engage in meaningful and effective consultation. If the value of consultation is best reflected in the degree of input and control that workers have regarding the very decisions that affect them, and if the level of worker involvement is a reflection of an organization's level of cultural maturity, it is debateable whether the notion of applying moral and ethical principles during consultation, and the adoption of the paradigm of organizational and cultural maturity, have been successfully developed and embraced in the commercial and industrial sector of the construction industry of Victoria, Australia. © 2013 Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.
- Description: C1