Employees

Is Workplace Injury an Inevitable Part of Life?

Another upsetting poll result I just read: apparently, every year, the Workers’ Compensation Board of Nova Scotia polls citizens in that province to ask: Do you believe workplace injury is an inevitable part of life? And every year, more than 50% answer: Yes, it is. (What do you think?)

What?? Inevitable? Like my brother, David, was fated to fall into an industrial mixer and die of his injuries because... bad stuff happens? Nobody's perfect?

The $6 Billion Question

How do we change the fact that most workers lack the mind-set that safety is part of their ‘real job’? [That's the $6 billion question]... so writes the Australian blog, Safety Concepts. You'd think it would be the easiest thing in the world to motivate employees about: after all, it is their own lives and limbs we're talking about. Their own health and wellness - and given the human instinct for survival and selfishness, Workplace Safety should be an easy sell.

But it isn't. Obstacles to staff being keen about safety could include:

Immigrant men twice as likely to get hurt at work

As if it isn't hard enough to get a decent job in a new country, recent stats bear out that immigrant workers are more likely to get hurt at work than native-born employees. Two new studies by the The Institute for Work & Health (IWH), an independent, not-for-profit organization, compare work conditions and injury rates between immigrants and workers born in Canada, and come up with some startling conclusions.

Employees' part in the blame game

Duane Craig writes in his excellent article, Manslaughter on the Jobsite at the blog, The Construction Informer: "There is another side to safety on construction sites... the overwhelming difficulty in getting people to voluntarily comply with safety rules on the job and having enough visibility into what is really going on to make them think twice about not complying."

Odd jobs to worry about safety... or are they?

I don't know about you, but my thoughts fly to factories, lumber yards, mine shafts and construction sites when I think of workplace safety... but I'm learning that there are risks in jobs I wouldn't have thought risky.

 

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