The WHS Radar Report was released this week and it highlighted the case of Fortescue Metals. Fortescue entered into a $1.47 million agreement with WorkSafe WA for not providing documentation on key psychosocial safety matters. This involves 10 strategies to support the industry in managing psychosocial safety and here is a breakdown of these with expected costs (Section 4 has their 10 strategies). I wanted to look at one of these strategies.
NOTE: As with all these cases, we are not suggesting the organisation is or isn't managing psychosocial risks effectively. We do not have access to their processes. We are sharing these to highlight that these risks are now being taken seriously by regulators to encourage organisations to take action.
Strategy 4.4 – Multi-Year Plan ($200,000-250,000)
Fortescue identified a gap in proper psychosocial safety metrics making it hard to know if hazards exist and if what they’re doing is working. This raises an interesting question. What metrics do you really need to do this? Here are two essential metrics:
- The prevalence and impact of hazards in the eyes of the workers
- How this is changing over time
In my experience, I’ve seen that workplaces get a lot of data from various sources. Often, it’s hard to wrangle this data together to answer those two questions above. Relying on sources such as engagement surveys isn’t accurate and won’t hold up for a workplace inspection. I believe the way to overcome this is through focused worker consultation giving you exactly the data you need on psychosocial risks. If you haven’t already done this, I strongly recommend starting to consult the workforce specifically on psychosocial risks.
One pushback you might get is that people are surveyed out or senior leadership won’t support it. Maybe there’s a belief that this will involve a lot of work such as focus groups, interviews, data analysis and learning new systems. Together with Martyn Campbell we have developed an approach to overcome these obstacles.
In my opinion, Martyn is the most practical WHS professional I’ve worked with. We are very fortunate to be combining our software solution with the safety expertise of Martyn. I’d like to share this approach with you briefly below.
We are able to get this data for you on psychosocial risks without long surveys, focus groups, interviews, data analysis, prohibitive costs and learning new systems. If you're interested in finding out how, reach out here.