Monitoring the impact of occupational health and safety education
- Authors: Thatcher, Anthony
- Date: 2006
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: "This research investigated whether engineers, graduating from universities more than a decade after the introduction new occupational health and safety (OHS) legislation in Australia, were being equipped with the knowledge and skills to fulfil their professional, legal and moral responsibilities in relation to occupational health and safety. The study focussed on engineering students as future business leaders and designers of working environments. An instrument was designed to examine the ability of OH&S education to affect decision-making and problem solving competence in engineering students and graduates. The study found that engineering graduates in the 1990's were departing [from] their academic institutions with superficial knowledge of occupational health and safety responsibilities and accountability in the workplace. The evaluative tool identified an absence of safety management skills and knowledge within graduate and student engineer groups and an extensive urge to blame and discipline the victim or blame a government regulatory authority. The research found that although occupational health and safety professionals adopt a strategy of a safe work place rather than place emphasis on individual workers the engineers did not adopt the safe place approach and focussed on the person. It is recommended that the evaluative tool or a derivative of it should be used to evaluate the extent to which our community progresses in developing the vital OHS decision-making skills of the people who will manage and design workplaces." --p.ii.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Authors: Thatcher, Anthony
- Date: 2006
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: "This research investigated whether engineers, graduating from universities more than a decade after the introduction new occupational health and safety (OHS) legislation in Australia, were being equipped with the knowledge and skills to fulfil their professional, legal and moral responsibilities in relation to occupational health and safety. The study focussed on engineering students as future business leaders and designers of working environments. An instrument was designed to examine the ability of OH&S education to affect decision-making and problem solving competence in engineering students and graduates. The study found that engineering graduates in the 1990's were departing [from] their academic institutions with superficial knowledge of occupational health and safety responsibilities and accountability in the workplace. The evaluative tool identified an absence of safety management skills and knowledge within graduate and student engineer groups and an extensive urge to blame and discipline the victim or blame a government regulatory authority. The research found that although occupational health and safety professionals adopt a strategy of a safe work place rather than place emphasis on individual workers the engineers did not adopt the safe place approach and focussed on the person. It is recommended that the evaluative tool or a derivative of it should be used to evaluate the extent to which our community progresses in developing the vital OHS decision-making skills of the people who will manage and design workplaces." --p.ii.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Building an understanding of the development of OHS management in small business in the Victorian construction industry
- Authors: Leggett, Susan
- Date: 2009
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: "Small businesses are regularly perceived to be poor performers in OHS management. However, attributing poor performance soley to size, to the hazardous nature of the industry or to a simplistic combination of both aspects neglects the recognition that there are some small businesses that can manage OHS with greater capacity than others."
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
- Authors: Leggett, Susan
- Date: 2009
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: "Small businesses are regularly perceived to be poor performers in OHS management. However, attributing poor performance soley to size, to the hazardous nature of the industry or to a simplistic combination of both aspects neglects the recognition that there are some small businesses that can manage OHS with greater capacity than others."
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
Safety culture and resilience engineering exploring theory and application in improving gold mining safety
- Pillay, Manikam, Borys, David, Else, Dennis, Tuck, Michael
- Authors: Pillay, Manikam , Borys, David , Else, Dennis , Tuck, Michael
- Date: 2010
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: Paper presented at Gravity gold 2010 'Optimising recovery' p. 129-140
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: Contemporary approaches to safety management appear to be failing short of meeting its mark in improving mine safety. This is evidenced by the high workers compensation, high incidence rates and fatalties. Evidence from high-risk and complex organisations points towards safety culture as being important in improving site safety. In more recent years resilience engineering has been touted as a new and innovative way of managing safety. This paper reviews and synthesises previous literature on safety culture and resilience engineering. It then highlights methods that can be used to measure safety culture and resilience engineering, and explores similarities and differences between complex organisation and gold mining to identify opportunities for more innovative approaches to improving safety in gold mining operations through safety culture and reslience engineering.
- Authors: Pillay, Manikam , Borys, David , Else, Dennis , Tuck, Michael
- Date: 2010
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: Paper presented at Gravity gold 2010 'Optimising recovery' p. 129-140
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: Contemporary approaches to safety management appear to be failing short of meeting its mark in improving mine safety. This is evidenced by the high workers compensation, high incidence rates and fatalties. Evidence from high-risk and complex organisations points towards safety culture as being important in improving site safety. In more recent years resilience engineering has been touted as a new and innovative way of managing safety. This paper reviews and synthesises previous literature on safety culture and resilience engineering. It then highlights methods that can be used to measure safety culture and resilience engineering, and explores similarities and differences between complex organisation and gold mining to identify opportunities for more innovative approaches to improving safety in gold mining operations through safety culture and reslience engineering.
Consultation and organisational maturity in the Victorian construction industry
- Authors: Ayers, Gerard
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: Consultation is generally acknowledged both in Australia and internationally, as being essential if high levels of occupational health and safety (OHS) are to be achieved and maintained. In Victoria, such is the recognition of the important role that consultation plays in OHS, that it is mandated under the Victorian OHS regulatory framework. Indeed, all Australian OHS statutes now make provision, to varying degrees, for consultation to occur when dealing with OHS matters. This is principally conducted through OHS representatives and OHS committees. However, there is a growing body of opinion which raises concerns over whether such legislative provisions that provide for OHS consultation, is sufficiently adequate to ensure that the consultation is both meaningful and effective in terms of OHS outcomes. If this is the case, what might be missing or lacking from the consultation process, especially in hazardous and dangerous industries where OHS success would appear to be imperative? The Victorian construction industry, like the construction industry in general, is acknowledged for its dangerous and hazardous nature. It has a large transitory workforce with little permanent job security and often suffers from a multifarious and disjointed work organisation structure. Such features tend to work against an environment that openly recognises and encourages meaningful and effective consultation. These conditions also tend to confound the development of any kind of social and positive learning and communicative culture within the industry, leading to an underutilization of the knowledge and skill contained within the workforce. As well as failing to bring to fruition the full participation of workers in the management of OHS, the underutilization of knowledge and skill is potentially one of the largest hidden costs that an organisation may incur. The notion of organisational and cultural maturity is acknowledged both internationally and in Australia as a useful concept that can assist organisations in achieving higher standards and levels of OHS. This is especially so in high risk and hazardous industries such as the petrochemical, oil refinery and aviation industries. However, organisational and cultural maturity is arguably a relatively new and under-researched construct in the Victorian building and construction industry, while the concept of consultation within both the industry and the organisational maturity paradigm has not yet been sufficiently explored. The role that moral and ethical principles play in consultation is now beginning to emerge and gain wider recognition within the literature. This research project set out to examine how some of these principles were applied by senior site managers and OHS representatives of five Victorian construction companies during OHS consultation at five different constructions sites, and whether this consultation could be considered to be meaningful and effective. The companies who participated in this project were each allocated a level of organisational maturity, dependent upon how they managed various aspects of their business operations in terms of OHS. Senior managers and OHS representatives were chosen as participants in the research because they are generally acknowledged as the critical vectors in the sharing and transferring of knowledge and skill at the workplace. The data from this research suggest that regardless of the level of organisational maturity each organisation was deemed to have reached, and no matter how the individual participants applied the particular moral and ethical principles used during this research, the OHS consultation that took place on the different construction sites was limited to, and focused primarily on, everyday operational and execution aspects of the job, rather than more strategic and longer term OHS issues. The practical implications of this research are that if OHS consultation between senior managers and OHS representatives can be conducted in such a way as to openly and unambiguously recognise and apply particular moral and ethical principles, and if consultation is allowed to focus on more strategic and longer term OHS and organisational aspects of a construction project, this may yield more benefits, in terms of OHS outcomes, for all industry participants.
- Authors: Ayers, Gerard
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: Consultation is generally acknowledged both in Australia and internationally, as being essential if high levels of occupational health and safety (OHS) are to be achieved and maintained. In Victoria, such is the recognition of the important role that consultation plays in OHS, that it is mandated under the Victorian OHS regulatory framework. Indeed, all Australian OHS statutes now make provision, to varying degrees, for consultation to occur when dealing with OHS matters. This is principally conducted through OHS representatives and OHS committees. However, there is a growing body of opinion which raises concerns over whether such legislative provisions that provide for OHS consultation, is sufficiently adequate to ensure that the consultation is both meaningful and effective in terms of OHS outcomes. If this is the case, what might be missing or lacking from the consultation process, especially in hazardous and dangerous industries where OHS success would appear to be imperative? The Victorian construction industry, like the construction industry in general, is acknowledged for its dangerous and hazardous nature. It has a large transitory workforce with little permanent job security and often suffers from a multifarious and disjointed work organisation structure. Such features tend to work against an environment that openly recognises and encourages meaningful and effective consultation. These conditions also tend to confound the development of any kind of social and positive learning and communicative culture within the industry, leading to an underutilization of the knowledge and skill contained within the workforce. As well as failing to bring to fruition the full participation of workers in the management of OHS, the underutilization of knowledge and skill is potentially one of the largest hidden costs that an organisation may incur. The notion of organisational and cultural maturity is acknowledged both internationally and in Australia as a useful concept that can assist organisations in achieving higher standards and levels of OHS. This is especially so in high risk and hazardous industries such as the petrochemical, oil refinery and aviation industries. However, organisational and cultural maturity is arguably a relatively new and under-researched construct in the Victorian building and construction industry, while the concept of consultation within both the industry and the organisational maturity paradigm has not yet been sufficiently explored. The role that moral and ethical principles play in consultation is now beginning to emerge and gain wider recognition within the literature. This research project set out to examine how some of these principles were applied by senior site managers and OHS representatives of five Victorian construction companies during OHS consultation at five different constructions sites, and whether this consultation could be considered to be meaningful and effective. The companies who participated in this project were each allocated a level of organisational maturity, dependent upon how they managed various aspects of their business operations in terms of OHS. Senior managers and OHS representatives were chosen as participants in the research because they are generally acknowledged as the critical vectors in the sharing and transferring of knowledge and skill at the workplace. The data from this research suggest that regardless of the level of organisational maturity each organisation was deemed to have reached, and no matter how the individual participants applied the particular moral and ethical principles used during this research, the OHS consultation that took place on the different construction sites was limited to, and focused primarily on, everyday operational and execution aspects of the job, rather than more strategic and longer term OHS issues. The practical implications of this research are that if OHS consultation between senior managers and OHS representatives can be conducted in such a way as to openly and unambiguously recognise and apply particular moral and ethical principles, and if consultation is allowed to focus on more strategic and longer term OHS and organisational aspects of a construction project, this may yield more benefits, in terms of OHS outcomes, for all industry participants.
Action research and occupational health and safety: an exploratory study
- Authors: Runnalls, John
- Date: 2000
- Type: Text , Thesis , Masters
- Full Text: false
- Description: "This paper describes an exploratory study into action research and its potential application within the field of Occuptional Health and Safety (OHS) in Australia."
- Description: Master of Applied Science
- Authors: Runnalls, John
- Date: 2000
- Type: Text , Thesis , Masters
- Full Text: false
- Description: "This paper describes an exploratory study into action research and its potential application within the field of Occuptional Health and Safety (OHS) in Australia."
- Description: Master of Applied Science
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