CSG Monthly Meetings
Safety Shake-up Across The Tasman
Venue: DXC Technology, Level 19 (Board Room 1), 360 Collins Street, Amsterdam
(Between Queen & Elizabeth Street).
Nan Austin.
The death of 28 miners in an underground explosion at New Zealand’s Pike River Coal Mine nine years ago led to anger, accusations and the call for a major inquiry into the country’s safety laws. The result was a major re-engineering of New Zealand’s safety systems with the introduction of the new Health and Safety Work Act in 2016.
Nan Austin will give a first-hand account of the safety reforms in New Zealand, and how the new system is working out, at Central Safety Group's lunchtime meeting on 12 November... Read More
Note: When booking for the Event, please ensure you select the November Meeting from the dropdown list (shaded orange), to RSVP to this meeting.
Rebuilding Safety Culture - a case study
Venue: Venue: Room B411 – Level 4, CAE building, 253 Flinders Lane, Amsterdam
(Between Swanston & Elizabeth Streets).
Safety culture: pulling it all together – a case study When employee morale, trust and job satisfaction plummet in the wake of major changes, how do you restore a strong safety culture? Mary Kikas faced that exact challenge when asked to help the Health and Safety team of a utilities company that had undergone a significant change management process and redundancies. She will outline what happened in a presentation to the Central Safety Group at its first lunchtime meeting for the year on Tuesday 11 February 2020.... Read More
Note: When booking for the Event, please ensure you select the February Meeting from the dropdown list (shaded orange), to RSVP to this meeting.
When Workplace Changes Outpace OHS Standards
Venue: DXC Technology, Level 19 (Board Room 2), 360 Collins Street, Amsterdam
(Between Queen & Elizabeth Street).
Professor David Caple, OHS Consultant and Adjunct Professor, Centre for Ergonimics & Human Factors, LaTrobe University.
More and more jobs today require working on mobile devices including laptops, Surface Pros and tablets. Some workplaces ‘dock’ these with monitors and keyboards and others are being used as the primary input device. When it comes to assessing ergonomic risks linked to this, compliance is measured by long-established OHS Codes and Australian Standards.
But how relevant and effective are the current Standards for white collar workplaces where agile work is changing the way we work? Professor David Caple will discuss this issue in a lunchtime presentation to Central Safety Group on 10 September... Read More
Note: When booking for the Event, please ensure you select the September Meeting from the dropdown list (shaded orange), to RSVP to this meeting.
Dr Tracey Sletten, Research Fellow at CRC for Alertness, Safety and Productivity & Monash University.
Details coming soon
Note: When booking for the Event, please ensure you select the August Meeting from the dropdown list (shaded orange), to RSVP to this meeting.
Speakers: Rohan Sykes, Phoenix Workplace Safety
Rohan Sykes was a healthy, active young family man when he suffered an horrific workplace injury that caused severe burns to 35% of his body. He was seriously injured by exposure to radiant heat from molten glass, despite wearing full PPE and following procedures. Read more...
Note: When booking for the Event, please ensure you select the June Meeting from the dropdown list (shaded orange), to RSVP to this meeting.
Claire Nivarovich, Director Mental Health Programs, WorkSafe Victoria
Work-related mental injury is the second most common cause of workers' compensation claims in Australia, and accounts for around 13% of workers' compensation claims in Victoria.
What can employers do to prevent mental injury in their workplace? Where can they best direct their efforts?
Claire Nivarovich, Director Mental Health Programs, WorkSafe Victoria, spoke about this topic in a lunchtime presentation on 14 May. Read more...
Note: When booking for the Event, please ensure you select the May Meeting from the dropdown list (shaded orange), to RSVP to this meeting.
Michael Carley, Manager, Safety and Risk at Villa Maria Catholic Homes.
The challenges of safety in the aged care & disability sectors. The aged care and disability sectors are among the fastest growing sectors in Australia. Employment in this area has exploded, growing 36% in the past five years – three times the rate of growth across all other occupations. The particular OHS challenges for these industries will be discussed by Michael Carley, Safety and Risk, Villa Maria Catholic Homes, on Tuesday, 9 July at the Central Safety Group lunchtime meeting. Michael will talk about the common hazards and risks in safety management in these sectors. He will also discuss current trends, gaps and recommended solutions. Read more...
Note: When booking for the Event, please ensure you select the July Meeting from the dropdown list (shaded orange), to RSVP to this meeting.
Kristen Richardson, Wellbeing and Safety Business Partner Team Leader, ANZ.
Staff safety and difficult customer interactions
Many businesses have seen an upsurge in staff impacted by difficult customer interactions that may place them at risk of a physical or psychosocial illness.
This has particularly been the case in the banking industry and is varied across customer contact, whether it is face-to-face or telephone interactions.
ANZ Bank has a strategy in place to keep their staff safe from this risk and this will be presented by Kristen Richardson, Wellbeing and Safety Business Partner Team Leader at ANZ, at a lunchtime presentation on 9 April.
The strategy looks at all aspects of staff safety – physical, psychosocial and most importantly the leadership culture shift required to enable this strategy to be successful. This strategy has been developed using external consultancy expertise and research across other industries. Read more...
Note: When booking for the Event, please ensure you select the April Meeting from the dropdown list (shaded orange), to RSVP to this meeting.
Richard Greenwood, RG Chemical Safety.
Combustible dust can be a hidden chemical hazard in workshops, factories, storage facilities and many other places. Because it’s not classified as a hazardous substance or as dangerous goods, it is often ignored in workplace procedures and risk control. The significance of this will be discussed by chemical hazards expert Richard Greenwood in a lunchtime presentation to Central Safety Group on 12 March.
The consequences of not recognising the presence of combustible dust were dramatically demonstrated recently when two workers doing routine maintenance were seriously injured in a workplace explosion in Victoria. The result was an Enforceable Undertaking for the company involved, including preparation of basic workplace training materials and a video for awareness of the hazard. Richard will talk about this case as part of its compliance with WorkSafe’s Enforceable Undertaking.
He will explain how fine combustible dusts are likely to form and potentially explode when disturbed in an enclosed space. He will also discuss how to detect and manage risks associated with this... Read More
.The presentation will be followed by a brief Annual General Meeting of CSG, to which all Financial Members are invited to attend.
Note: When booking for the Event, please ensure you select the March Meeting from the dropdown list (shaded orange), to RSVP to this meeting.
Rachel McGregor and Ebonie Martello, Safety People
Key job market trends in safety in Australia will be the subject of a presentation at the Central Safety Group’s first meeting for 2019 on 12 February. OHS recruitment specialists Rachel McGregor and Ebonie Martello of Safety People will give a presentation followed by a Q&A session with the audience.
They will talk about:
.The presentation will be followed by a brief Annual General Meeting of CSG, to which all Financial Members are invited to attend.
Note: When booking for the Event, please ensure you select the February Meeting from the dropdown list (shaded orange), to RSVP to this meeting.
Greg Splatt.
Throughout Australia there is unprecedented growth in all areas of construction – commercial, civil and residential. This boom has created issues relating to knowledge, skills and competencies needed at all levels of the construction workforce.
The issue of safety in this climate will be discussed by Greg Splatt, a construction safety manager and trainer, in a lunchtime presentation for Central safety Group on 13 November.
Greg says many people are coming into the industry with the promise of long-term work, long hours and good pay packets. But without the necessary industry experiences and know-how, what risk do they present on job sites? Challenges with safety understanding and experience can also exist at supervisor and manager level.
Greg will also speak about his experiences with the unique OHS challenges during extensive construction rebuilds after major events such as cyclones and bushfires.
Note: When booking for the Event, please ensure you select the November Meeting from the dropdown list (shaded orange), to RSVP to this meeting.
Dr Ross Donohue, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Business and Economics, Monash University.
There has been surprisingly little research done on how inspectors assess health and safety in workplaces. Although the inspectors’ task is grounded in rules and regulations, there are few standardised measures to assist them.
Dr Ross Donohue, our speaker on 9 October, has been doing ground breaking work on this.
As a result Ross has developed a 7-item generic OHS metric checklist as a standardised tool to assist inspectors and has conducted research to validate this measure in a study undertaken with WorkSafe Victoria.
Ross also sees the need for developing measures and training to assist OHS inspectors to assess psychosocial risk.
Note: When booking for the Event, please ensure you select the October Meeting from the dropdown list (shaded orange), to RSVP to this meeting.
Professor David Caple - OHS consultant and Adjunct Professor, Centre for Ergonomics & Human Factors, La Trobe University.
Many organisations have invested in sit-stand desks in response to experts’ claims about the benefits, ranging from reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes to solving back pain.
Professor David Caple will discuss the latest knowledge on the effectiveness of sit-stand desks and issues surrounding their use on 11 September in a lunchtime talk to the Central Safety Group.
David is presenting two papers on this topic at the International Ergonomics Association Congress in Florence, Italy in August. He will be part of a group of 16 presenters from around the world sharing the latest research relating to sit to stand desks.
There can be confusion about how much to use these desks while working, and whether a certain duration or pattern of standing should be prescribed. “In some places they are using them very well, but in other places employees and their managers are unclear about how to benefit from them. As a result, you’ll sometimes find people feeling guilty for not using them,” says David. “A lot of factors can affect how successful these desks are in the workplace. This includes things like the change management process, job design, employee education and work culture.”
Note: When booking for the Event, please ensure you select the September Meeting from the dropdown list (shaded orange), to RSVP to this meeting.
John Naughton.
Contractor management is one of the most challenging areas of safety risk management. Contractor management systems can be onerous and complicated, leaving gaps when it comes to covering business and compliance requirements.
John Naughton and his team tackled this problem and transformed contractor management while he was Director of HSE at a major food company, and he will share his experiences at a lunchtime talk to Central Safety Group on Wednesday 15 August.
He will describe the journey from a manual spreadsheet-based contractor management system to an easy to manage, efficient and flexible system embracing modern technology. This change also brought crucial new dimensions and features to the company’s system for managing contractors, and significantly, reduced administrative time and costs.
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Note: When booking for the Event, please ensure you select the August Meeting from the dropdown list (shaded orange), to RSVP to this meeting.
