The dangers of ignoring or accepting Risk
Unfortunately workplace accidents, serious injuries and fatalities occur everyday. What seems to grab our attention the most though is when these events occur in a ‘safe’ space.
Example in point is the four fatalities which occurred at a theme park on the Gold Coast last October. The nation mourned the tragic loss of innocent lives. The fact that the incident occurred to members of the public, in the happy (safe) environment of a theme park seemed to make the reality of the event more shocking.
In the same month of October 2016 (safe work month!) two other fatal workplace incidents occurred, one in Queensland where two workers were killed after being crushed by a concrete wall, and another in Western Australia where a worker fell down a ventilation shaft. The later incidents received comparibly minimal media coverage.
More recently in January 2017 an actor was fatally shot whilst shooting a music video in mid afternoon in the Brisbane CBD, once again there was much media attention and general confusion as to how such an incident could occur .
Each of these deaths, and every single workplace fatality before or after are equally tragic, with wide ranging impacts on families and communities. The outrage at the dreamworld fatalities and the comparable ignorance of the two fatal work incidents, caused me to question our acceptance of workplace fatalties as inevitable. Despite the Zero Harm mottos embroidered on work uniforms everywhere, it seems to me that there is an acceptance of risk in the workplace especially in certain industries (mining, construction) and a corressponding assumption that safety is assured in the ‘lower risk’ industries.
These subtle assumptions of risk are often based on our perceived knowledge of the work involved together with pre-concieved ideas on how ‘dangerous’ it is or is not. The problem with this thinking is that the potential for catasphrophic safety incidents exists in all industries. In fact I would go further to state that those ‘high risk’ industries often control their risks well, and that by comparison many lower risk businesses have no controls in place at all.
Quite often when training, talking with a client or potential client or just in general conversation, I hear the statement ’we don’t need a safety management system as we’ve never had an accident’ or ‘we are 900 days injury free’.
While you would think that these statements would be evidence of WH&S success, quite often these are the workplaces that need the most help, as they are either neglecting to take proactive action with regard to Workplace Health and Safety based on a reliance on their past good fortune or implementing WH&S Systems that discourage hazard and risk reporting and drive the risk underground.
If you think you don’t need a workplace health and safety program purely on your past good fortune and little else, you may be in for a serious reality check. Potentially you have a very large number of uncontrolled risks in your business. Just because you have never had an injury, or a serious injury or a fatality in your business does not mean that will remain the case.
Something as simple as a shortcut or a workplace fall can lead to serious injury or death. Regardless of the nature of your business or the industry you are in, having robust hazard identification and risk management practices is the key to ensuring that you are not coasting along on your past results.
At HR Business Direction we can provide you with the coaching and tools that you need to effectively identify and control workplace Health and Safety Risks in your business.
Christina Willcox MHSc; PostGradDip OHS; BBus(HRM)
Workplace Health & Safety
christina.willcox@hrbd.com.au
07 3890 2066
www.hrbd.com.au
