Honorary Fellow of the Safety Institute of Australia, Professor Niki Ellis will present at the upcoming Safety in Action conference to be held at the Melbourne Convention Centre, 5 – 7 April 2011.
Professor Ellis, CEO of the Institute for Safety, Compensation and Recovery Research (ISCRR) will present the conference’s second day keynote address and will speak about futures research in occupational health and safety.
ISCRR has used a futures research approach to help identify what research is needed to anticipate and prepare for the future.
Professor Ellis says approaching research with a different mindset and looking 25-years into the future is a challenging concept for most people.
“With futures research you have to step outside your world view, put aside the preconceptions and beliefs you have and think in new ways about what lies ahead,” said Professor Ellis.
“For example, a Dutch study found that there were really only two important, deeply held beliefs in the occupational health and safety sector. People believe either that ‘accidents’ are caused by the unsafe behaviour of individuals or that ‘accidents’ are caused by unsafe environments”.
“Other research in Australia has also investigated this idea and work done by a Sydney Law School shows that, by and large, employers believe in the safety behaviour approach, whereas regulators believe in the environmental approach.”
“Through ISCRR’s futures research, one idea that emerged was that the OHS sector of the future needs to be a new type of partnership between business and government. And if this kind of change is going to happen, we need to better understand the beliefs underpinning management systems built to protect and promote health at work.”
“Interestingly, the National Commission investigating the BP Deepwater Horizon environmental catastrophe also commented on the need for a new partnership approach. They said that regulators and employers needed to work together if major eco-disasters are to be avoided.”
“In the modern workplace, injuries are declining and illness is increasing. Our current approaches to occupational health and safety are based on a safety science which emerged in the US at the beginning of the 20th century during the second Industrial Revolution. Safety science replaced an earlier, more paternalistic and philanthropic view which arose in the UK during the first Industrial Revolution.
“We now expect massive changes to the way we work. I think it is equivalent to a third Industrial Revolution, said Professor Ellis.
“New models of OHS are starting to emerge where the aim is to not only protect people from harm in workplaces, but to recognise that work can be a major source of health and well-being. Businesses are increasingly aware of ‘talent wars’ and want to be employers of choice. And companies are interested in forming new partnerships with the communities from which they draw their employees and customers.
“This is most certainly a new stream of thinking and will help anticipate and prepare for both existing and upcoming challenges.”
“Understanding what the future might hold for occupational health and safety is crucial if we are to do research that will help schemes respond to the issues they will face,” said Professor Ellis.
Other trends for the future which ISCRR’s OHS foresight project detected included a greater emphasis on prevention, better ability to detect emerging risks and better use of implementation science to ensure effective and efficient interventions.
ISCRR is a collaborative research partnership launched in April 2009 between WorkSafe Victoria, the Transport Accident Commission and Monash University. ISCRR aims to be at the forefront of finding new ways of translating research findings into action.
Professor Ellis will be among 50 speakers at the Safety in Action conference presented by the Safety Institute of Australia Ltd at the Melbourne Exhibition & Convention Centre, from 5-7 April. For more information visit http://sia.org.au/safetyinaction .
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For more information, please contact:
Kate Telfer Lauren Fragapane
SIA media liaison ISCRR media liaison
0433 224 249 0408 035 131