Work health and safety specialists pursue many typical objectives and comply with similar guidelines. Whether you are a company owner, a PCBU, a Location Safety Officer, or part of my Occupational Safety Solutions team, we have particular subjects we frequently deal with, as well as things we hardly ever talk about. It’s those underlying things that I want to focus on today.

Sadly, my father departed three weeks back, and beyond the grief and mourning, his passing away has me believing outside packages we normally reside in. He was a good man, and I would’ve liked him to have had more time to invest in my young boys and myself, however that’s not how it played out. He had a long innings, and he batted with strategic singles, significant boundaries and even had a few “smacked out of the grounds for six” moments. But death, and specifically his death, has got me thinking of much deeper problems.

We reside in complex and extremely deceptive times. In the midst of this, the burdens being put on employers are increasing, not just demanding more of our resources but likewise increasingly demanding compliance to structures of believing we and our employees may not constantly agree with. We’re being forced off the well-worn paths, tracks and routes we’re used to, and onto side-roads and goat trails and into unpredictable terrain.

Do you as a busy person, as I do, battle with harmonizing work, personnel, family and good friends? Do you also find it hard at times to believe beyond the apparent and the basics?

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

Stated plainly … work health and safety is about anticipating what can go wrong, Strategising to avoid it occurring, and assisting keep individuals safe.

Stated more drastically … I can metaphorically talk about the snakes of catastrophe that are loose in a work environment. Many people range from snakes, however safety specialists act differently. WHS needs us to expect the snake, keep it in view, know how to respond, train others to do similarly, keep unnecessary snakes out, manage the snakes that are already inside, and plan for the ones that are birthed every day. It’s a big task!

Mentioned candidly … work health and safety activities have to do with assisting entrepreneur cover their arse, adhere to the law and keep their individuals safe.

But these are the WHS elements that are obvious. Let’s speak about three topics that don’t get offered much time.

SOME WHS ASPECTS WE DON’T TEND TO SPEAK ABOUT
At a top level, we see standards, checks, balances and protocols. Beneath 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 range of elements, motivations, principles and viewpoints, of which, there are 3 I wish to discuss:

1. Ethical awareness,
2. Wrestling with morality, and
3. Managing and enabling feeling,

Think about them as trail guides to help you browse when federal government, situations, or your people require you off the well-worn paths that you are used to.

WORK HEALTH AND SAFETY INCLUDES ETHICS

You may not have actually thought much about its application in the safety context. In other words, morality is a system that informs us what is ideal and incorrect, and ethics is the application of those rights and wrongs in a provided situation. It can be fairly argued that ethics alter over time, however morality is consistent.

Where does this fit in the WHS context? Ethics is like a trail guide that tells you to get the rate, decrease, or step carefully. The virtue or morality is in reaching the location; ethics is worked out in arriving appropriately.

For example, while most workers believe it is right to discuss hazardous scenarios (morality), but not all do (ethics). The majority of likewise understand it is right for them to fix a supervisor who is directing them to do something unsafe (morality), but lots of would not follow through on this conviction (ethics). There is frequently 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 assume that morality suffices, or that the ethical behaviour seen in one work domain will likewise be evidenced in another. Effective work health and safety isn’t just about what is right; it’s likewise about developing a workspace where ethical behaviour is the norm. A few of the tips that follow will help.

WORK HEALTH AND SAFETY IS UNAPOLOGETICALLY MORAL

We have actually currently explained that morality is the art of understanding the distinction in between right and wrong, even when the best thing is less useful. Different employees have varying ideas of right and wrong. Nowadays, we also encounter numerous who think the just best that matters is ‘their right. It’s the ethical equivalent of having ‘an individual fact’ – and in a workplace safety situation, that is a disaster waiting to happen.

My old man taught me that right is right and wrong is wrong. Even when it injures, ideal stays right, and incorrect stays wrong. Our workers may disagree on how right and wrong is decided, but workers require to come together when it pertains to work health and safety. It’s alright for an employee to know that their viewpoints and their morality have value, however when it comes to safety decisions, in all but the most exceptional of cases, the ethical 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 before and throughout World War 2 the Nazi SS rounded up Jewish, Homosexual and polish people for destruction.

These days, I am conscious that individual morality varies exceptionally from person to individual – perhaps more than ever previously. That brings a challenge to my office because I require to battle with the implications of an ethically uncertain truth.

Morality gives none of us a free pass, and I reckon my Papa’s generation understood that much better than we do.

WORK HEALTH AND SAFETY INCLUDES FEELING
When it comes to emotions, there are 2 groups (or extremes) that tend to dominate. One emotional group is passive, while the other is proactive or reactive. The very first group, the passive emotions, tend to include worry or uncertainty. These emotions cause hesitancy and trepidation, leading workers to not speak when they should. The second group is marked by emotions like greed, conceit, over-confidence and anger. These emotions get in the way of efficient communication, shut down open conversation and increase the possibility of hazards and mistakes occurring.

What are we to do? The work environment requires all types of characters, so all these emotions will make a look. We require to discover a way to handle emotional extremes.

My father’s generation was big on personal obligation and just “getting shit done”. My generation was more interested in self-esteem and understanding ourselves within a team-oriented context. Today’s young people appear to believe 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 sincerity is a great place to start. A group leader can reveal the method by prefacing his remarks to encourage emotional awareness and self-management. :

” I feel a little nervous raising this, but I’m going to …”
” Wait! Give me a minute. I’m too f ‘n upset and I’m gon na say something we’ll both regret.”
” I do not mind if you do ‘you’ in the house. Heck, I do ‘me’ in the house. But 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 function, knowing these three underpinning issues will definitely assist your outcomes. It seems to me that there is little to lose and much to get. Ethical awareness, the determination to wrestle with morality, and emotional responsiveness are all areas of investment, not expenditure.

As we close, you may have kept in mind that I haven’t even mentioned an item – and I’m not going to. Today, my item silence is my method of walking the talk. What I have actually shared with you is so foundational it is worthy of an undistracted focus.