One of the findings of Rosa Carrillo’s book Voices From the Resistance is that many people in safety are at risk of burnout. The symptoms of risk of burnout are:

1. You feel mentally exhausted at work.
2. You struggle to feel enthusiastic about your job.
3. You have trouble concentrating when working.
4. You sometimes overreact at work without meaning to.

These are explained recent research (https://neurosciencenews.com/burnout-psychology-25624/) into burnout.

Rosa Carrillo is one of our workshop presenters at the SPoR Conference in May (https://spor.com.au/canberra-convention/) where we will focus on Personhood and Everyday Social Resilience.

One of the strongest stressors on people who work in safety is role conflict. This was borne out in many of Rosa’s interviews. Role conflict emerges when people enter the safety industry thinking they will be able to care and help people but instead, are required to police regulation, count hazards and enforce compliance, mostly with being petty about PPE.

Similarly, when engaged in study of the safety curriculum, people soon learn there is no help or upskilling in: pastoral care, counselling skills, helping skills or people skills. And so, after gaining a safety qualification, a safety advisor enters the workforce with none of the critical skills they need to do their job. The same applies to learning about culture or human decision making.

What a strange industry, where one has to step outside the confines of the safety curriculum to learn any of the critical skills needed to practice safety! Indeed, there is no emphasis either on the development of resilience for the communities in which the safety person will work.

How strange to be asked to count injuries and harm yet, receive no skills in what do about it or how to help those who suffer?

How distressing to be in situations of loss and harm and not being skilled in being able to help! Simply return to the office, prepare a report, find out who to blame and move on. This is a recipe for burnout and psychosocial distress. And there is no help in all the nonsense about ‘psychosocial hazards’ either (https://safetyrisk.net/mental-health/psychosocial-safety/). All that is happening now is that this initiative is driving under-reporting and a silent scourge of harm sent elsewhere.

And the solution to all this coming from Safety is, more engineering and behaviourism, more slogans, hype and marketing.

However, there is something you can do about it that is practical, positive and doable. If this interests you then just email: admin@spor.com.au and you can start a new journey of learning about helping, methods to help and how to build resilience in your community.