Practical Guidance for OHS Professionals
Because of the positive feedback from his Safety Reflections over the last few years, just before he passed away suddenly, George Robotham incorporated all of his work into this 60 page collection of essential reading for every Safety Professional, new or old. This stuff is based on practical, real world experience and I promise you will learn more here in an hour or so than in 4 years at any Safety University. I’ve only published the intro and table of contents but you can download the whole document here (now in Version 2 after a complete reformat by Louisa Chesswas) :
DOWNLOAD: [download id="192"]
Introduction
In nearly 4 decades of involvement in field, corporate, project and consultant OHS roles I have had the opportunity to learn a variety of things. In this publication I have outlined generally 1-2 page thoughts on safety and safety aligned topics, with the aim of providing some brief guidance to the newly developing OHS professional. I believe I cover a fair bit of relevant ground. Whilst there is a smattering of theory in the following, most is based on practical experience. A strong message is that to be effective in OHS you need competency from other areas, as well as your OHS competencies.
Why read this paper? What will I learn? What is in it for me?
This paper will expose you to the sort of learning about OHS you will be unlikely to find in most tertiary OHS qualifications. It is focused on the real world not theory.
Introduction. 4
Why read this paper? What will I learn? What is in it for me?. 4
Why have OHS?. 5
Geoff McDonald. 6
Safety Myths. 6
LTIFR. 7
Personal Damage Occurrence Investigation Models. 8
Analysis of “Accident” experience. 8
Access to earthmoving equipment 9
Critical Incident Recall 10
George’s Philosophy on Life, Work and Relationships. 11
Background to OHS. 16
Behaviour-Based Safety. 16
Role of the safety professional 16
Safety incentives. 17
Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate. 18
Alternatives to the hierarchy of controls. 18
Young worker safety. 20
Zero harm.. 21
Commercial Safety Management Systems. 22
Major mistakes I have seen made in implementing OHS. 23
The toughest safety assignment I have had. 24
How to have an effective safety committee. 25
Common law.. 26
Safety Benchmarking. 27
OHS tools for managing safety. 29
Job Safety Analysis. 29
George’s down to earth advice to safety representatives and safety committee members. 29
Risk assessment tips. 30
Accident investigation summary. 31
Auditing OHS systems. 31
Non OHS tools for managing safety. 33
Safety communications. 33
Safety culture. 33
How to improve safety culture. 34
Interpersonal skills. 34
Leadership. 45
Leadership quotes. 45
Military leaders on leadership. 46
OHS Leadership. 46
How to be a safety leader 47
References. 47
Leadership in safety-Ethics. 48
Leadership in safety-Trust 48
Learning. 50
OHS Learning. 50
Implementation of a learning management system.. 50
The use of Power-Point presentations. 51
Tool box meetings. 52
The use of humour 52
Safety Induction. 53
Human Resources. 54
Job interviews. 54
The resume. 55
Conclusion. 57