Notes

Three WHS TOPICS WE RARELY DISCUSS

WHS specialists pursue lots of typical goals and adhere to similar guidelines. Whether you are an entrepreneur, a PCBU, a Location Safety Officer, or part of my Occupational Safety Solutions team, we have particular topics we typically handle, as well as things we hardly ever discuss. It's those underlying things that I want to concentrate on today.

The sad thing is, my father passed away three weeks back, and beyond the grief and sadness, his passing has me thinking outside the boxes we generally live in. Death, and particularly his death, has got me believing about deeper problems.

We reside in complex and really deceptive times. In the midst of this, the burdens being put on companies are increasing, not only demanding more of our resources but likewise increasingly requiring compliance to frameworks of believing we and our employees 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 unpredictable surface.

Do you identify with any of these feelings? Do you as a busy person, as I do, wrestle with managing work, workers, family and friends? Do you also discover it hard at times to believe beyond the apparent and the essentials? If so, and you likewise find these to be difficult days, I believed I 'd offer a few insights from my off-the-beaten-track thinking. I hope they assist!

3 WAYS OF DESCRIBING WHS
The WHS function can be explained clearly, significantly or with street-level bluntness:

Mentioned clearly ... WHS has to do with visualizing what can go wrong, Strategising to avoid it happening, and helping keep people safe.

Mentioned more drastically ... I can metaphorically talk about the snakes of tragedy that are loose in a work environment. Most people range from snakes, however safety specialists act differently. WHS requires us to expect the snake, keep it in view, know how to respond, train others to do also, keep unneeded snakes out, handle the snakes that are currently within, and plan for the ones that are birthed every day. It's a huge task!

Stated candidly ... WHS activities are about helping company owner cover their arse, comply with the law and keep their people 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 DISCUSS
At a surface level, we see standards, balances, procedures and checks. Underneath these surface behaviours, guiding principles are at work, with duty of care and due diligence blazing a trail. If we look even deeper, we see a prolonged range of elements, inspirations, philosophies and principles, of which, there are 3 I want to touch on:

1. Ethical awareness,
2. Wrestling with morality, and
3. Allowing and managing emotion,

Consider them as trail guides to help you navigate when federal government, scenarios, or your people require you off the well-worn paths that you are used to.

Work Health and Safety INTEGRATES ETHICS

You might not have actually believed much about its application in the safety context. In other words, morality is a system that tells us what is right and wrong, and ethics is the application of those rights and wrongs in a given scenario. It can be fairly argued that ethics alter over time, however morality is consistent.

Where does this fit in the WHS context? Ethics resembles a path guide that informs you to pick up the speed, slow down, or step carefully. The virtue or morality remains in reaching the location; ethics is worked out in arriving appropriately.

While many employees believe it is ideal to comment on harmful circumstances (morality), but not all do (ethics). Most also know it is right for them to fix a supervisor who is directing them to do something dangerous (morality), but many would not follow through on this conviction (ethics). There is typically a space between morality and ethics and I have a strong suspicion that gap was narrower in my father's day.

The take-away: do not assume that morality is enough, or that the ethical behaviour seen in one work domain will also be evidenced in another. Effective Work Health and Safety isn't almost what is right; it's also about developing an office where ethical behaviour is the norm. A few of the tips that follow will help.

WHS IS UNAPOLOGETICALLY MORAL

We've currently pointed out that morality is the art of understanding the difference between best and incorrect, even when the ideal thing is less beneficial. It's the ethical equivalent of having 'a personal fact' - and in a workplace safety scenario, that is a catastrophe waiting to happen.

My old man taught me that right is right and wrong is wrong. Even when it hurts, right stays right, and wrong stays wrong. Our employees might disagree on how right and wrong is chosen, but employees require to come together when it comes to Work Health and Safety. It's fine for a worker to understand that their viewpoints and their morality have worth, however when it comes to safety decisions, in all however the most exceptional of cases, the moral thing to do is what the legislation states to do.

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

The take-away for me, and maybe for you, is that something does not end up being ethical or unethical because the crowd or the law states it is. Nowadays, I know that personal morality varies exceptionally from person to person - possibly more than ever in the past. Due to the fact that I require to wrestle with the ramifications of a morally uncertain truth, that brings a challenge to my work environment. Clear communication and decisions will assist - however sticking my head in the sand will not.

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

Work Health and Safety INCLUDES EMOTION
When it comes to emotions, there are 2 groups (or extremes) that tend to dominate. These emotions trigger hesitancy and trepidation, leading workers to not speak when they should. These emotions get in the method of efficient communication, shut down open conversation and increase the possibility of risks and errors happening.

What are we to do? The work environment needs all types of characters, so all these emotions will make an appearance. We require to discover a method to deal with emotional extremes.

My father's generation was big on personal obligation and simply "getting shit done". There was a clear expectation that the individual would flex. Depressions and world wars will do that to you. My generation was more interested in self-esteem and understanding ourselves within a team-oriented context. Today's young people seem to believe the world revolves around their wants, their needs, and their reality. It's a predicament and an extremely frustrating one at that.

Maybe there's a winning balance to be found in between, and I reckon honesty is a great location to begin. For instance, a team leader can show the way by prefacing his remarks to encourage emotional awareness and self-management. :

"I feel a little anxious raising this, but I'm going to ..."
"Wait! Give me a minute. I'm too f 'n angry and I'm gon na say something we'll both remorse."
"I don't mind if you do 'you' at house. When we're here, we do 'us'!

WHAT'S THE TAKE-AWAY?
Whatever the specifics of your WHS role, understanding these three underpinning concerns will absolutely assist your outcomes. It seems to me that there is little to lose and much to acquire. Ethical awareness, the desire to wrestle with morality, and emotional responsiveness are all areas of investment, not cost.

As we close, you might have kept in mind that I haven't even pointed out an item - and I'm not going to. Today, my item silence is my way of strolling the talk. What I have actually shown you is so fundamental it is worthy of an undistracted focus.
this content
Occupational Safety Solutions
WHS

Homepage: https://www.occupational-safety.com.au/blogs/safety-blog/3-work-health-and-safety-topics-we-rarely-talk-about