Consider how much time you spend sitting in a typical working day? For those who have desk based jobs, the following breakdown of time spent sitting would look familiar:

At the start of this decade, thought leaders in Workplace Health and Safety were flagging that the decade would be one focused on the HEALTH aspects of Health and Safety and with good reason. Safety is widely understood to be the process of managing risk through the identification, assessment and control of hazards that arise as work is performed.

The mental health response in Australia has; to date; been widely focused on signs, symptoms and responses. This has been a great start to the journey of change and has shifted our understanding and de-stigmatised the conversation.

On 4 March 2015 yet another person, a 20 year old, has died on a construction site. The man was engulfed in a trench collapse. He was laying pipes in a trench at a housing development site in outer Melbourne when he was killed. Now his family, workmates and friends are mourning, and I am sure asking themselves that ubiquitous question – why?

One of the more difficult things to deal with in Risk Management is the notion of possible VS probable when making a decision about risk realisation. This notion played out late last year with the tragic death of a young Australian cricketer and then two days later by a cricketing umpire in Israel. In both instances a fast paced ball and lack of adequate head protection was the culprit but were these freak events?

In the space we operate in, there are times when we experience individual pushback with our Safety initiatives such as our coveted Leading Safetyworkshops. The odd participant will sigh and grumble that Safety gets in the way of doing business. That Safety is a cost to business and that budgets are tight.