Notes

Work Health and Safety TOPICS WE RARELY DISCUSS

WHS professionals pursue numerous typical objectives and abide by similar guidelines. Whether you are a business owner, a PCBU, a Site Safety Officer, or part of my Occupational Safety Solutions team, we have specific subjects we frequently deal with, in addition to things we seldom discuss. It's those underlying things that I want to focus on today.

Sad to say, my father died three weeks back, and beyond the sorrow and sadness, his passing away has me believing outside the boxes we usually live in. Death, and specifically his death, has got me thinking about deeper problems.

We live in complex and very misleading times. In the midst of this, the burdens being put on companies are increasing, not just requiring more of our resources however also increasingly requiring compliance to structures of thinking we and our workers may not always agree with. We're being forced off the well-worn paths, tracks and trails we're used to, and onto side-roads and goat trails and into uncertain terrain.

Do you identify with any of these emotions? Do you as a busy person, as I do, wrestle with harmonizing work, personnel, family and friends? Do you likewise discover it hard at times to think beyond the apparent and the fundamentals? If so, and you likewise discover these to be challenging days, I thought I 'd provide a number of insights from my off-the-beaten-track thinking. I hope they help!

THREE METHODS OF EXPLAINING WHS
The WHS role can be described clearly, dramatically or with street-level bluntness:

Mentioned plainly ... Work Health and Safety is about predicting what can fail, Strategising to avoid it happening, and assisting keep individuals safe.

Mentioned more dramatically ... I can metaphorically talk about the snakes of catastrophe that are loose in an office. The majority of people range from snakes, however safety specialists act in a different way. WHS requires us to expect the snake, keep it in view, understand how to respond, train others to do likewise, keep unneeded snakes out, manage the snakes that are already within, and plan for the ones that are birthed every day. It's a big task!

Mentioned candidly ... WHS activities are about helping company owner cover their arse, adhere to the law and keep their individuals safe.

These are the WHS components that are apparent. Let's discuss 3 topics that do not get provided much time.

A FEW WHS ASPECTS WE DON'T TEND TO TALK ABOUT
At a surface level, we see standards, balances, protocols and checks. Underneath these surface behaviours, guiding concepts are at work, with duty of care and due diligence blazing a trail. If we look even deeper, we see a prolonged variety of elements, philosophies, inspirations and concepts, of which, there are three I want to discuss:

1. Ethical awareness,
2. Wrestling with morality, and
3. Handling and enabling emotion,

Think of them as path guides to assist you browse when federal government, scenarios, or your individuals require you off the well-worn courses that you are used to.

WHS INVOLVES ETHICS

You most likely currently have an operating ethical compass if you've read this far. You may not have believed much about its application in the safety context. 'Application' is what ethics is about. Ethics is the application of morality in a given situation. Simply put, morality is a system that tells us what is right and wrong, and ethics is the application of those rights and wrongs in an offered circumstance. It can be fairly argued that ethics alter gradually, but morality is constant.

Where does this fit in the WHS context? Ethics is like a path guide that informs you to get the pace, slow down, or step carefully. The virtue or morality remains in reaching the location; ethics is worked out in getting there properly.

For instance, while the majority of workers believe it is right to comment on hazardous situations (morality), however not all do (ethics). The majority of also know it is right for them to correct a manager who is directing them to do something harmful (morality), but many would not follow through on this conviction (ethics). There is often a gap in between morality and ethics and I have a strong suspicion that space was narrower in my father's day.

The take-away: do not presume that morality is enough, or that the ethical behaviour seen in one work domain will also be evidenced in another. Reliable WHS isn't practically what is right; it's also about developing a work space where ethical behaviour is the standard. A few of the tips that follow will help.

Work Health and Safety IS UNAPOLOGETICALLY MORAL

We've currently explained that morality is the art of knowing the difference in between right and wrong, even when the right thing is less useful. Different employees have differing concepts of right and incorrect. Nowadays, we likewise come across many who believe the only best that matters is 'their right. It's the ethical equivalent of having 'an individual reality' - and in a workplace safety situation, that is a catastrophe waiting to happen.

Our employees may disagree on how right and wrong is chosen, however employees need to come together when it comes to Work Health and Safety. It's alright for a worker to understand that their viewpoints and their morality have value, but when it comes to safety decisions, in all but the most extraordinary of cases, the ethical thing to do is what the legislation states to do.

What if a supervisor, a fellow worker or federal government authority acts, demands or manoeuvres in an unethical way? Plainly, there are times when what is legal is also unethical; for example, both previously and during World War 2 the Nazi SS rounded up Jewish, Polish and homosexual individuals for destruction.

These days, I am mindful that individual morality varies exceptionally from individual to person - maybe more than ever previously. That brings a challenge to my workplace because I require to wrestle with the implications of an ethically unclear reality.

Morality gives none of us a free pass, and I reckon my father's generation comprehended that better than we do.

WHS INCLUDES EMOTION
When it concerns emotions, there are two groups (or extremes) that tend to control. One emotional group is passive, while the other is proactive or reactive. The very first group, the passive emotions, tend to consist of fear or unpredictability. These emotions trigger hesitancy and trepidation, leading workers to not speak when they should. The 2nd group is marked by emotions like greed, over-confidence, arrogance and anger. These emotions get in the way of reliable communication, shut down open conversation and increase the possibility of dangers and errors occurring.

What are we to do? The office requires all types of personalities, so all these emotions will make a look. We need to find a way to handle emotional extremes.

My father's generation was huge on individual responsibility and just "getting shit done". My generation was more interested in self-confidence and understanding ourselves within a team-oriented context. Today's young individuals seem to think the world revolves around their wants, their needs, and their fact.

Possibly there's a winning balance to be discovered in between, and I reckon honesty is a good location to start. For example, a team leader can show the way by prefacing his remarks to encourage emotional awareness and self-management. For example:

"I feel a little nervous raising this, however I'm going to ..."
"Wait! Provide me a minute. I'm too f 'n upset and I'm gon na state something we'll both remorse."
"I don't mind if you do 'you' in the house. Heck, I do 'me' at home. However when we're here, we do 'us'! Do you comprehend that?"

WHAT'S THE TAKE-AWAY?
Whatever the specifics of your Work Health and Safety role, knowing these 3 underpinning concerns will certainly help your results. It seems to me that there is little to lose and much to gain. Ethical awareness, the determination to wrestle with morality, and emotional responsiveness are all locations of financial investment, not expense.

As we close, you may have kept in mind that I have not even mentioned a product - and I'm not going to. Today, my item silence is my method of walking the talk. What I've shown you is so foundational it is worthy of an undistracted focus.
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