• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

SafetyRisk.net

Humanising Safety and Embracing Real Risk

  • Home
    • About
      • Privacy Policy
      • Contact
  • FREE
    • Slogans
      • Researchers Reveal the Top 10 Most Effective Safety Slogans Of All Time
      • When Slogans Don’t Work
      • CLASSIC, FAMOUS and INFAMOUS SAFETY QUOTES
      • 500 OF THE BEST AND WORST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
      • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
      • COVID-19 (Coronavirus, Omicron) Health and Safety Slogans and Quotes for the Workplace
      • Safety Acronyms
      • You know Where You Can Stick Your Safety Slogans
      • Sayings, Slogans, Aphorisms and the Discourse of Simple
      • Spanish Safety Slogans – Consignas de seguridad
      • Safety Slogans List
      • Road Safety Slogans 2023
      • How to write your own safety slogans
      • Why Are Safety Slogans Important
      • Safety Slogans Don’t Save Lives
      • 40 Free Safety Slogans For the Workplace
      • Safety Slogans for Work
    • FREE SAFETY eBOOKS
    • Free Hotel and Resort Risk Management Checklist
    • FREE DOWNLOADS
    • TOP 50
    • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS
    • Find a Safety Consultant
    • Free Safety Program Documents
    • Psychology Of Safety
    • Safety Ideas That Work
    • HEALTH and SAFETY MANUALS
    • FREE SAFE WORK METHOD STATEMENT RESOURCES
    • Whats New In Safety
    • FUN SAFETY STUFF
    • Health and Safety Training
    • SAFETY COURSES
    • Safety Training Needs Analysis and Matrix
    • Top 20 Safety Books
    • This Toaster Is Hot
    • Free Covid-19 Toolbox Talks
    • Download Page – Please Be Patient With Larger Files…….
    • SAFETY IMAGES, Photos, Unsafe Pictures and Funny Fails
    • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
    • Download Safety Moments from Human Resources Secretariat
  • Social Psychology Of Risk
    • What is Psychological Health and Safety at Work?
    • Safety Psychology Terminology
    • Some Basics on Social Psychology & Risk
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk – Prof Karl E. Weick
    • The Psychology of Leadership in Risk
    • Conducting a Psychology and Culture Safety Walk
    • The Psychology of Conversion – 20 Tips to get Started
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk And Safety
    • Psychology and safety
    • The Psychology of Safety
    • Hot Toaster
    • TALKING RISK VIDEOS
    • WHAT IS SAFETY
    • THE HOT TOASTER
    • THE ZERO HARM DEBATE
    • SEMIOTICS
    • LEADERSHIP
  • Dr Long Posts
    • ALL POSTS
    • Learning Styles Matter
    • There is no Hierarchy of Controls
    • Scaffolding, Readiness and ZPD in Learning
    • What Can Safety Learn From Playschool?
    • Presentation Tips for Safety People
    • Dialogue Do’s and Don’ts
    • It’s Only a Symbol
    • Ten Cautions About Safety Checklists
    • Zero is Unethical
    • First Report on Zero Survey
    • There is No Objectivity, Deal With it!
  • THEMES
    • Psychosocial Safety
    • Resiliencing
    • Risk Myths
    • Safety Myths
    • Safety Culture Silences
    • Safety Culture
    • Psychological Health and Safety
    • Zero Harm
    • Due Diligence
  • Free Learning
    • Introduction to SPoR – Free
    • FREE RISK and SAFETY EBOOKS
    • FREE ebook – Guidance for the beginning OHS professional
    • Free EBook – Effective Safety Management Systems
    • Free EBook – Lessons I Have Learnt
  • Psychosocial Safety
    • What is Psychosocial Safety
    • Psychological Safety
      • What is Psychological Health and Safety at Work?
      • Managing psychosocial hazards at work
      • Psychological Safety – has it become the next Maslow’s hammer?
      • What is Psychosocial Safety
      • Psychological Safety Slogans and Quotes
      • What is Psychological Safety?
      • Understanding Psychological Terminology
      • Psycho-Social and Socio-Psychological, What’s the Difference?
      • Build a Psychologically Safe Workplace by Taking Risks and Analysing Failures
      • It’s not weird – it’s a psychological safety initiative!
You are here: Home / Workers Compensation / Humanising Workers Compensation: the missed opportunity

Humanising Workers Compensation: the missed opportunity

April 24, 2017 by James Ellis Leave a Comment

Humanising Workers Compensation: the missed opportunity

– by James Ellis from http://www.frameworkgroup.com.au

imageIn preparation for dipping my toe into the public arena of the RTW summit I read through the training material generously provided by the energetic convenor, Mark Stipic. I’m a podcast addict and I’ve been absorbing Mark’s podcasts (RTW Nation) on my daily bike ride. His positivity is infectious.

Mark encourages the presenters to give some thought to our “why?”. I find this exercise difficult. Given that so much of our decision making is non conscious, I find myself wondering if my ‘why’ can be accurate or, at best, just a random grab at plausibility.

So rather than articulate something that can only be temporary and incomplete, because I’m always changing my mind, I’m more attracted to the thinking of Psychologist, Dr Jordan Peterson[1] who suggests;

“Think, learn and talk & get yourself strong enough so you can stand up for what you think is true – that’s not what is true because what the hell do you know? You don’t know a damn thing – everything you say is gunna be stupid but you have to say it in order to be corrected and maybe you won’t be so dumb and then maybe other people won’t be either and we can muddle through a little longer without having everything fall apart.”

This forum provides an opportunity for me to frame myself up as an expert. But I’d rather not. Not because I’m modest, the humility I muster doesn’t come easily. After 20 years in the injury support arena I find myself easily seduced by the idea that I’m an expert. What a comfortable little space that is. It takes considerable cognitive effort to keep raising doubts and remind myself that I’m a student. Conveniently in this endeavour, I’m also a father, a role that provides a fertile environment for raising awareness of one’s fallibility and biases.

Daniel Kahneman[2] ponders…

“the puzzling limitation of our mind: our excessive confidence in what we believe we know, and our apparent inability to acknowledge the full extent of our ignorance and the uncertainty of the world we live in.”

And, as if it’s not interesting enough that we’re largely overconfident, it seems that, even when presented with explicit evidence that we’re overconfident, we remain overconfident.

So with my fallibility and overconfidence in mind I submit my thesis for scrutiny.

 

I feel like we’re missing an opportunity.

My thesis is that by caring for people authentically, not only do we support their recovery, but we can strengthen their relationship with their work, with their colleagues and with their employer.

‘Injury management’ tends to be treated as a cost control exercise. I wish I had a dollar for every time I have heard words to the effect that…

“the worker’s health is of course, our main concern, but, you know (*tortured facial expression with paternally raised eyebrows*), we also have to have a commercial focus”.

It’s a comment that seems to arise when the list of unknowns grows beyond an organisation’s comfort zone. It’s the beginning of binary and pejorative narrative that reveals a disconnect between an organisation’s espoused values[3], (often words to the effect of people being their greatest asset) and the underlying assumption that commercial considerations are somehow incompatible with a colleague’s wellbeing. The disruption surfaces the underlying assumptions.

This narrative reveals how our thinking can become infected by the anthropological assumption that people are cogs in the wheels of a ‘commercially focussed’ organisation, it allows us to wind back support. It allows for dehumanisation.

 

I have also heard the ubiquitous argument that good injury management leads to lower premiums and, the prevention is better than cure trope, continually expressed as truisms. But I worry that these are close cousins of the commercial focus theme. I understand both but my observation is that they fertilise attributions with a dehumanising trajectory in the form of trendy reductionist interventions and narratives.

Having made this point, I want to be explicit. A commercial focus and/or a preventative emphasis aren’t to be dismissed. I’m just suggesting wariness about what comes next.

For example;

When the school principal started the conversation with the caveat that “you know me James, you know me to be a caring and compassionate person right?”, I couldn’t help thinking of the ubiquitous precursor, “no offence, but…”, that so often precedes a gratuitous insult. And then, the third party report that the worker had been seen at a bbq, laughing and socialising and, clearly, “in no pain at all”. My response, which suppressed my intuitive reaction, was tempered. “I don’t want this to sound patronising” I stumbled. “Go ahead” I was encouraged, “speak your mind”. “Ok” I started, “how do we measure someone else’s pain experience?”. The response was reflexive, “oh I know, of course, yes…” as we nodded and bonded over the greyness. But we both knew a suppressed assumption had surfaced. That easy oversimplification that allowed plausibility to trump[4] accuracy – had been put on the table. “Can you be sure his injury is genuine?” I was asked of a man who has devoted the last 13 years of his career to working with teenagers who have been rejected by mainstream high schools. “How can we tell he’s not trying to secure a non-teaching role?” I was asked of a man who had had his forearm jammed in a door by a violent student and had subsequently had surgery and has not ridden his beloved surfboard for more than a year. A man who has not been able to enjoy his holidays and is fearful of recurrence in an unpredictable and volatile environment where the police are on a first name basis with the staff.

The discussion about suitable duties was equally as frustrating and familiar. After doing my best to prime a busy school principal by using the word ‘creative’ several times. After doing my best to emphasise the unique skill set of a man who has spent his career anticipating violent outbursts and distracting and encouraging and listening to rejected teens, I posed the question, “how can we utilise this man’s special skills” in an outpost where staff have been seeking him out to help them problem solve during his theoretical absence? The answer, sadly, demonstrated and confirmed Ken Robinson’s lament[5] that schools and educational institutions value a structured, industrialised routine over creativity. “We’ll have to carry him” he said.

 

 

 

Nassim Taleb[6] speaks of anti-fragility. He asks the question, what is the opposite of fragile? The most commonly anticipated response is ‘robust’? Robust is a word that is often used to describe an organisation with ‘good systems’ or a person who is ‘strong’.

But Taleb isn’t satisfied. He asks what if the opposite of fragile is something, or someone, that/who gets stronger as a result of being damaged or hurt. This isn’t a new concept, just a new word – anti-fragile. We love to talk about personal growth in response to adversity. A broken bone invokes a physiological response that lays down more bone at the fracture site. Muscles that are challenged and stressed become stronger.

In fact he takes this further…

“Taleb[7] looks at modern society with a critical eye. He examines how it intends to smooth out life by interfering in massive systems like the economy. Taleb argues that this interference does not make society a better place but that it actually destroys the volatile environment that is essential for antifragility.”

Taleb argues for an evolutionary paradigm. Where volatility ensures mistakes. Where mistakes provide the stimulus for learning, growth and creativity. When we’re paralysed by our fear of mistakes, or pre-occupied looking for someone to blame, the opportunity for learning, growth and creativity is diminished. The opportunity is missed.

 

When people are injured at work their lives are disrupted. The fear of the unknown looms large. When we care for them authentically they notice. When we care for them to care for the premium I think they notice that too. Authentic care can be transformative, it can make them stronger. It can inflate their discretionary effort, their sense of belonging and their self-efficacy. And it can impact the carers too. I was heartened to hear an insurer recently state that they have given their claims managers permission to care.

Injuries provide us with an opportunity to care. And by care I mean genuine interest. The interest we show, and it has to be authentic, is inadvertently therapeutic.


[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAncrmE6YV0

[2] Kahneman, Daniel Thinking Fast and Slow

[3] Schein, Edgar H., Organizational Culture and Leadership (2010), John Wiley & Sons, San Franscisco

[4] How apt is the word ‘trump’ in this phrase?

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY&t=57s

[6] Taleb, Nassim Nicholas (2012) Antifragile: Things that gain from disorder. Random House, USA.

[7] ― from “Summary of Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb|Key Concepts in 15 Min or Less”

  • Bio
  • Latest Posts
  • More about James
James Ellis

James Ellis

Managing Director at The Framework Group
James Ellis

Latest posts by James Ellis (see all)

  • How does collective mindfulness apply to workers compensation? - February 20, 2023
  • Talking Risk Video–Anti-Fragility - July 8, 2022
  • Psychological Core Stability for Wellbeing in Workers Comp - June 24, 2022
  • In search of plan B in workers’ recovery - July 29, 2020
  • What and how should we measure to support recovery from injury? - May 24, 2017
James Ellis
B.App.Sc (Physio) After finishing High School I experimented with a range of vocations including 12 months as a midshipman in the Royal Australian Navy, a false start studying Engineering at UNSW and a very enjoyable 5 years as a gym instructor at a variety of gyms in Sydney. I graduated as a Physiotherapist from the University of Sydney in 1991. After 12 months as an intern in the public hospital system in NSW I travelled to Michigan, USA, where I obtained experience in an outpatient facility servicing the local community and the adjacent private hospital. I then returned to Australia and obtained a full time position at the Hills Street Sports Medicine Centre in Gosford, NSW, treating sports injuries. In 1995 I founded Hills Street Occupational Rehabilitation Service which later became Hills Street Group and, more recently, Framework Group. Over the past 19 years we have grown to have several franchised teams throughout NSW. I really enjoy the daily challenge of problem solving in the complex arena of workplace injury management. At Framework, we focus on humanising injury management. We've developed a unique model of injury management that allows our employer clients to maintain and enhance their relationships with their workers which, in turn, has very positive commercial implications. We believe that injury management provides employers with a portal through which they can demonstrate how much they care about their team. We believe that mistakes and injuries are inevitable, because people are fallible, but this same fallibility provides opportunities for learning and enrichment of relationships.

Please share our posts

  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Workers Compensation Tagged With: workers compensation

Reader Interactions

Do you have any thoughts? Please share them below Cancel reply

Primary Sidebar

Search and Discover More on this Site

Never miss a post - Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,516 other subscribers

Recent Comments

  • Rob Long on Culture and Risk Workshop – Feedback
  • Andrew Floyd on Culture and Risk Workshop – Feedback
  • Leon Lindley on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Rob Long on Entertainment, Suckers and Making Money From Safety
  • Rob Long on Celebrating 60 Years of Lifeline
  • Gregg Ancel on Entertainment, Suckers and Making Money From Safety
  • Rob Sams on Celebrating 60 Years of Lifeline
  • Rob long on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Rob Long on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Rob Long on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Rob Long on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Admin on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Leon Lindley on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Admin on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Mariaa Sussan on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Brian Darlington on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Leon Lindley on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Narelle Stoll on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Narelle Stoll on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Brian Edwin Darlington on SPoR Workshops Vienna 26-30 June

RECOMMENDED READING

viral post – iso 45003 and what it cannot do

Introduction to SPOR – FREE!!

Psychosocial Safety and Mental Health Series

Celebrating 60 Years of Lifeline

Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness

Duty of Care is NOT Duty to Care (for persons)

Safety, Ethics, SPoR and How to Foster the Abuse of Power

Psychosocial Spin – Naming Bad as Good, Good Work Safety!

How to Manage Psychosocial Risks in your organisation

The Delusions of AI, Risk and Safety

Health, the Poor Cousin of Safety

Psychosocial Health Conversations – Three

Conversations About Psychosocial Risk – Greg Smith, Dr Craig Ashhurst and Dr Rob Long

More Posts from this Category

NEW! Free Download

Please take our 2 minute zero survey

FREE eBOOK DOWNLOADS

Footer

VIRAL POST – The Risk Matrix Myth

Top Posts & Pages. Sad that most are so dumb but this is what safety luves

  • 500 OF THE BEST AND WORST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
  • Free Safety Moments and Toolbox Talk Examples, Tips and Resources
  • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
  • Road Safety Slogans 2023
  • Competing Values Framework and SPoR
  • Culture and Risk Workshop - Feedback
  • 15 Safety Precautions When Working With Electricity
  • Safety Acronyms
  • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS, CHECKISTS, REGISTERS, TEMPLATES and APPS
  • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators

Recent Posts

  • Competing Values Framework and SPoR
  • Culture and Risk Workshop – Feedback
  • The Myth of Certainty and Prediction in Risk
  • Practical Case Studies in SPoR Presented at Vienna Workshops
  • Risk iCue Video
  • Rethinking Leadership in Risk
  • ‘Can’t Means Won’t Try’ – The Challenge of Being Challenged
  • Gesture and Symbol in Safety, the Force of Culture
  • Human Factors is Never About Humans
  • Celebrating 60 Years of Lifeline
  • Smart Phone Addiction, FOMO and Safety at Work
  • Entertainment, Suckers and Making Money From Safety
  • Breaking the Safety Code
  • The Futility of the Centralised Safety Management System?
  • Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Risk iCue Video Two – Demonstration
  • Radical Uncertainty
  • The Safety Love Affair with AI
  • Safety is not a Person, Safety as an Archetype
  • Duty of Care is NOT Duty to Care (for persons)
  • What Can ‘Safety’ Learn From a Rock?
  • Safety, Ethics, SPoR and How to Foster the Abuse of Power
  • Psychosocial Spin – Naming Bad as Good, Good Work Safety!
  • SPoR Workshops Vienna 26-30 June
  • What Theory of Learning is Embedded in Your Investigation Methodology?
  • How to Manage Psychosocial Risks in your organisation
  • Risk You Can Eat
  • Triarachic Thinking in SPoR
  • CLLR NEWSLETTER–March 2023
  • Hoarding as a Psychosis Against Uncertainty
  • The Delusions of AI, Risk and Safety
  • Health, the Poor Cousin of Safety
  • Safety in The Land of Norom from the Book of Nil
  • Psychosocial Health Conversations – Three
  • Conversations About Psychosocial Risk – Greg Smith, Dr Craig Ashhurst and Dr Rob Long
  • Jingoism is NOT Culture, but it is for Safety
  • CLLR Special Edition Newsletter – Giveaways Update
  • The Disembodied Human and Persons in Safety
  • 200,000 SPoR Book Downloads
  • What SPoR Network is.
  • Trinket Safety
  • How to Know if Safety ‘Works’
  • Due Diligence is NOT Quantitative
  • SPoR Community Network
  • Conversations About Psychosocial Risk Session 2 – Greg Smith, Dr Craig Ashhurst and Dr Rob Long
  • The Psychology of Blaming in Safety
  • By What Measure? Safety?
  • Safe Work Australia a Vision for No Vision
  • Do we Need a Different Way of Being in Safety?
  • Non Common Sense Mythology

VIRAL POST!!! HOW TO QUIT THE SAFETY INDUSTRY

FEATURED POSTS

SPoR Quarterly Newsletter September 2021

Meeting is NOT About Technique

The De-Ethicization of the Object in Safety

The Dance of Death and Randomness

Is Complacency Evil?

Don’t Dare Speak the ‘f’ Word

Just distract you!

The Acts of God and Act of Humans

Sexual Stereotyping Can Be Deadly

Words Can Change Your Brain

Selective and Slow Harm is not Zero Harm

How is the unconscious in communication critical for understanding and managing risk?

Who is the Enemy and What War is Safety Fighting?

Safety Myopia

Semiotics and the Unconscious Messages We Send

Why Have Some Freedom in Safety When a Dose of Fear and Guilt Will Do?

Are You a Safety Fool?

Be Alert, Safety Needs More Lerts

Why is fallibility so challenging in the workplace?

Social Psychology of Risk Post-Grad Pics

Gesture in Risk Matters

Work-Life and Risk, Feminine Perspectives

Safety is the Wrong Anchor

Can There be a Feminist Safety?

An Ethical Psychology of Risk

Sergeant Safety

Is Choice The First Casualty in the Worker’s Compensation War?

Embodiment, Risk and Safety

Reality vs Theory, The Binary Divide

Complacency and The Wayward Mind

Investigations and Heuristics

There is no ‘Satellite Insightfulness’

WHS Legislation is NOT about Safety it’s about Culture

Study at The Centre for Leadership and Learning in Risk

Who is Responsible?

The Language of Priorities

Mental Health, Risk and Safety – Part 2

Concept Mapping Risk iCue

Risk and Safety Starts with Being?

Paralysis by Precaution

More Posts from this Category

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,516 other subscribers

How we pay for the high cost of running of this site – try it for free on your site

WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY?

What is Psychological Safety at Work?


WHAT IS PSYCHOSOCIAL SAFETY