I’ve had a two month hiatus from WHS and returned this weekend to a meteoric increase of information about psychosocial safety.
As a former WHS Regulator, and someone who is helping others with legal compliance, I thought I’d share an observation (OK, two actually!) from my return to LinkedIn.
Firstly, most of us safety professionals are not qualified to play alone in the psychological safety sandpit.
Secondly, don’t forget physical injury risk.
OK, first observation.
I am legally qualified. I am not a Psychologist, nor claim to be so. To effectively manage psychosocial safety risks I have always worked with those better placed (and qualified) than me to deal with injuries of the mind.
As psychology integrates into mainstream WHS, don’t be fooled in thinking we (that’s the Royal WHS ‘we’) are qualified to deal with psychological injury just because it’s a WHS duty. We’re not.
Also, because you’re a psychologist, it doesn’t mean you are a safety professional who can advise on broader safety management.
Each of us has our limitations and need more strings to our bows, or we work together, for a richer solution.
Second observation.
I am a huge advocate of psychological safety management and even bigger supporter of psychosocial safety management, but I have never taken my eyes of the physical injury safety requirements, especially fatal hazards and critical control management.
Please don’t be blinded by the volume of psych safety information to the detriment of managing physical injury risk. You must do both. It isn’t one or the other.
Psych safety in Australia is as mainstream as physical injury risk, so we need to competently address both risks to prevent, or minimise, them.
For those reading all the information, good on you! Keep reading, keep learning but make informed decisions based on the research and evidence.
Don’t blindly follow others with a narrow psychological only focus and drink their Kool Aid. You need to factor it into your broader WHS management program.
The challenge is that psychsocial hazards usually require an employee or manager to accept that they themselves are the hazard. As a manager, it is easy to agree that a hazardous chemical is a problem. It’s not personal. Let’s fix it. In contrast, If I am impaired by fatigue or drugs/alcohol I am the hazard and to ‘identify the hazard’ has obvious issues around self-interest. As such, our current WHS frameworks are ill-suited to this type of hazard management. It will prob require a whole new approach and a new type of safety professional. ISO45003 is a good start though.