Sometimes we tend to get bogged down in all of the OHS paperwork and jargon, and it’s a relief to know there are processes and steps to take to move forward. I particularly like how you pointed out the need for induction and training in every industry to make sure workers “are provided with ALL of the knowledge and skills they need to prevent workplace injuries”.

Thank you once again – it’s a pleasure and an honour to have you contribute to the site.

I think many people in so called “safe jobs” have lost sight of, or even failed to recognise, the complexity of their work environment. The nature and degree of potential injuries is perceived to be much less than the ‘high risk jobs’ and we lose sight of the fact that an injury is still an injury. Even paper cuts and splinters have been know to cause loss of limbs and death through septicaemia.

In our ‘caveman days’ the hunter had to be mindful of a natural environment and the ‘bities & stingies’ that it contained. But compared to today’s work environment, it was relatively simple. Even the threat of injury or death that evoked the stress response of ‘fight or flight’ was so much easier to recognise and respond to back then.

Today we don’t recognise that the issues of stress, related to conditions such as fatigue, overwork, unreasonable performance targets and due dates and the juggling of multiple priorities between family, work and social life, are inducing the same chemical repsonses in our bodies as the threat to life from bygone days. And because we don’t recognise it, our bodies are not given the same opportunities to deal with those chemicals as a physical fight or flight did for our forbears. Hence the chemicals build up in our systems and we succumb to ‘dis-stress’ the debilitating condition that causes so many to take ‘stress leave’. (See also, elsewhere on this website, the series of articles on ‘the links between human stress factors and musculo-skeletal disorders’).

In many workplaces we also don’t do such a good job of ‘initiating’ the new adult (today’s new employee) and passing on the shared learning, knowledge and experience of the tribe as was done in those long lost days. The comment “its common sense” is heard all too often in relation to people experiencing adverse outcomes in hazardous situations.

This results in people being ‘bitten or stung’ by unrecognised technological hazards of complex machinery – the photocopier, the shredder, the motorised hole punch, the binding machine, even the humble computer workstation, etc. And even in the use of simple tools such as shovels and spades with associated manual handling injuries arising from poor ergonomic actions.

Some years ago I was contracted to teach OHS to some young people as a pre-employment program for the construction industry. I did some research that highlighted that a significant number of manual handling injuries were occurring in conjunction with the use of these simple tools and most often it was young people who were hurt.

Going forward, we need to keep the process of induction and trainng for new employees, in every industry, up to date and make sure they are provided with ALL of the knowledge and skills they need to prevent workplace injuries.

Les Henley
OHS & Risk Manager
Spotless