We realized that this episode will be our first “three-person” podcast discussion.We’ve invited Jop Havinga, co-author of today’s paper and fellow Griffith University colleague, to join us. Our discussion today centers around the paper “Should We Cut the Cards?"

Our discussion today centers around the paper entitled: “Assessing the Quality of Safety-Focused Leadership Engagements” by Siddharth Bhandari, Matthew R. Hallowell, Caleb Scheve, James Upton, Wael Alruqi, and Mike Quashne– published by the American Society of Safety Professionals in January 2022.

Our discussion today centers around a 2017 Journal of the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association (APPEA) paper, Golden safety rules: are they keeping us safe? by Samantha J. Fraser and Daryl Colgan.  Although the paper was published in a trade journal and not an academic one, the research is solid, even though they could have made it semi-structured and somewhat open-ended to find out even more from the interviewees.

Our discussion today centers around a Safety Science paper from 2008 titled, “Reflexive approach to the activity of preventionists and their training needs: Results of a French study”  (Volume 46, Issue 8, October 2008, Pages 1271-1288 Safety Science by Alain Garrigoua and Guy Peissel-Cottenazb)

Our discussion today centers around the Sarah Blakeslee one-page reference guideline for citing research sources (Blakeslee, Sarah (2004) "The CRAAP Test," LOEX Quarterly: Vol. 31: No. 3, Article 4.) The paper is not peer-reviewed, but it is a helpful and worthwhile reference to keep in mind when writing your papers.  While Drew actually uses this guide with his students, research shows that even with the guidelines in front of them, many do not do the work and screen for these elements when...

Our discussion today centers around a 2014 paper by a group of Norwegian academics (Almklov,  Rosness, & Størkersen) entitled “When safety science meets the practitioners: Does safety science contribute to marginalization of practical knowledge?” From the Journal of Safety Science, 67, 25-36.

Our discussion today centers around the intriguingly titled paper, “The fetish of technique: methodology as a social defense,” by David Wastell.  Although it was published in 1996, its basic tenets are still useful and relevant today.  We will examine how safety methodology and processes within organizations are often relied upon for “relieving anxiety” rather than leading to successful or intended outcomes.

In this week’s episode, we tackle a topic that may or may not change the way you think about solving problems in an organisation. We delve deeper into an interesting paper on organisational decision making called A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice, written by Michael D. Cohen, James G. March, and Johan P. Olsen.

In today’s episode, we discuss another in our series of foundational papers: “Applying Systems Thinking to Analyze and Learn from Events” published in a 2011 volume of Safety Science by Nancy Leveson.  Leveson is a renowned Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and also a Professor of Engineering Systems at MIT. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Professor Leveson conducts research on the topics of system safety, software safety, software and system...

In today’s episode, we discuss the paper “Risk Management in a Dynamic Society: A Modelling Problem”  published in a 1997 volume of Safety Science by Jens Rasmussen (1926‑2018). Rasmussen was a renowned professor and researcher at the Riso Laboratory in Denmark.  As one of the most influential thinkers in safety and major hazard prevention, Rasmussen’s theories put forth in this article are still being used in safety science today.

In this week’s episode, we tackle an interesting conundrum in safety through a paper written by René Amalberti. The idea he poses is that aiming for zero errors in the workplace should not be the goal - in fact, some errors should be encouraged to ensure learning. The author also challenges the idea of continuously improving the safety of systems - stating that this could actually become detrimental to the overall safety of a workplace.

How do orgasnisations balance reliable performance and spontaneous innovation? This is the key question that the paper we are discussing today tries to answer.

The paper we are discussing today is about the language used in incident reports and whether it influences the recommendations made based on these reports. We run through the findings in this paper which include the process of writing three different reports on the same incident - each including all the same facts but just written with a different perspective and focus.

Today we jump head-first into a research paper that we have both found to be really interesting and thought provoking.

Drew Rae and David Provan are back in today’s episode discussing research findings in the field of maritime safety through simulator training.

In today’s episode - our 80th episode no less-  we do a deep-dive into a term coined by Dr Drew Rae himself, namely, Safety Clutter. Clutter in safety procedures are a thorn in the side of many employees and contractors. We discuss the different types of clutter, what causes these procedures to become cluttered and why it's a good idea to declutter.

Today we discuss the safety of younger workers in the workplace. The research paper was brought about because of a finding that workers under the age of 30 are between 60 and 70 percent more likely to be injured on the job.

In this episode, we take a deep dive into a research paper about using fear or shock tactics to inspire behavior change when it comes to health and safety communication. Motor vehicle safety adverts are one of the more common references for this type of method of communication. We discuss what the research has found on the effectiveness of communicating in this way and why it sometimes has the opposite effect.

Dr. Drew Rae and Dr. David Provan have a great discussion in this episode around a recently published research paper around the features of safety in maternity units. While these features can’t be exactly applied to all industries as a “How to” guide on safety, they do offer great insights into the thought process behind these safety measures. This in turn makes it easier to apply to different industries - using a similar approach but end up with an industry-specific implementation.

Greg Smith is both a safety lawyer and a safety professional. He graciously reached out to me after listening to our episode a couple of weeks ago on whether the capacity index is a good replacement for incident-count safety metrics, noting that when it came to due diligence, he felt that further elaboration on some of the topics we discussed might be a good idea. So of course I invited Greg to share his thoughts on today’s episode - which he kindly agreed to do.

Welcome back to the Safety of Work podcast! Though Drew is out for this episode, this means we’re graced by the insightful Dr. Jop Havinga, a colleague of ours from the Safety Science Innovation Lab. Dr. Havinga is a great guest, as he probably spends more time in the field than the average safety science professional.

Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Safety of Work podcast! Today, we are discussing whether the capacity index is a good replacement for incident-count safety metrics.

Welcome back to the Safety of Work podcast. Today, we discuss whether “pointing and calling” improves reliability of action.

On today’s episode, we discuss the visibility of high-vis clothing. Are they actually “high-vis”?

Today, we discuss whether mandatory double-check policies actually improve safety in the workplace.