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Looking Forward, Looking Back

  This cute little song by Slim Dusty lays out the ultimate challenge for Risk and Safety. So much of what characterizes Safety is about looking backward. Counting data, LTIs, TRIFR and counting lead indicators (positive activity) all focus on the past as if these are an indicator of the future. Most safety people I …

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The Perils of Excessive Safety Management Systems

  In a recent case of unfair dismissal in the Fair Work Commission (FWC 5004:2019 under commissioner Williams Perth 24 July 2019) we learn how creating onerous bureaucracy creates its own demons. The case of Wilson vs Boart Longyear  demonstrates how the creation of onerous safety management systems as always, brings by-products and trade-offs that …

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Proof of Safety is not Through Paperwork

The excesses of paperwork in the risk and safety industry is evidence of the mythology that paperwork demonstrates safety. Similarly the idea that numerics and metrics demonstrate safety is based on the same delusion. All data whether quantitative or qualitative is interpreted, there is no such thing as objective data. The delusion that volume and …

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Evidence, Proof and Paperwork in Safety

Evidence, Proof and Paperwork in Safety I was with a client yesterday and all the nonsense safety mythology surfaced the moment I suggested that they not record certain acts and activities. The anxiety hit the roof, ‘but Rob how can we ‘prove’ we undertook the activity and how can we prove its effectiveness?’ Great question …

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Paper Safe

Paper Safe By Greg Smith. First published here: https://www.waylandlegal.com.au/blog/paper-safe I am happy to announce my new book, Paper Safe: the triumph of bureaucracy in safety management is available. It seems to me that at some point health and safety management has lost its way. Rather than being concerned about protecting workers and others from the …

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