Thank you for your response - I had to laugh thinking of myself as a mad scientist subjecting people to cruel and inhumane practices. Let me rephrase... my people deal better with emperical data based on the environment and people they love and care about. Being able to have a control case would be beneficial for this approach, and it truly helps take some of scariness away.

None of us have walked this path before.

Thanks for running a control case and sharing with us. I am trying to get my lot on board with an approach like this, but don't have any positive cases to play with yet, but I know they are out there!

I agree with MattD. Address the risk as is reasonably practicable. How many people are your mask wearers exposed to, under what ventilation circumstances, for how long etc etc. Using your masks in less-risk zones sounds like a fine idea.

I (along with 20 or so others) represented NZ in Dragonboating in Japan (a very long time ago).
A very awesome experience, but am still avoiding eating sushi, drinking/eating green tea and selling raffle tickets (the fundraising was brutal).

Poor Bob. If I am reading this right, then the night time information was found out not-on-purpose which makes it a bit dodgy to start a conversation.

Therefore find out the information on purpose. Audit e-roads for all vehicles, start an education campaign about fatigue, about work/life/sleep balance, safe driving practices etc. Then you will have firm ground from which to start a conversation.

However, from what you say it sounds like Bob may have a night-time job. In which case what home pressures are on Bob to be working two jobs giving him a potential 3 hour sleep window? What can work do to help Bob (and all other employees) have a better home/work/sleep balance?

Fatigue may be a risk outcome of Bob's activities, but it certainly is not the cause of the activities.

Good luck!

Thank you for your kōrero. I have only just bothered reading about Te Whare Tapa Whā last week and I love it!

I used to think that to do H&S well that it needs to be incorporated at grass roots in everything we do and never as under a separate "Health and Safety" Agenda item. And I still think the same but now I call it a holistic approach which is exactly what Te Whare Tapa Wha is.

Mauri is a most excellent word, way better than psychosocial!

This is a thought provoking question!

I haven't though about the management plan at this stage however in answer to your questions:

Q1: use the appropriate L2, L3 or L4 responses for hygiene, distancing etc. The basics are unlikely to change.

Q2: my hypothetical is the Government response would never to be like the UK Plan. One of the goals of all the steps that have been taken so far is to protect the NZ health system which would be over run if Covid went rampant. Any future variants could overrun the health system and I don't envisage the government would abandon a successful strategy. Using this hypothetical we are looking at maybe 1-2 years before boarder restrictions ease right back, and even then we will still probably be inflicted with some sort of health passport.

Then as per Steve H says, it would be a question of assessing all activities and how intensely those activities are carried out, that the computer work may aggravate rather than cause.

However, even 'only 4 hours a day' is quite a lot if there is a vast frenzy of mouse clicking-and-moving in that time.

As an employer doing the right thing, it may pay to carry out an ergonomic assessment of the work process, including anyone else if they carry out the same/similar role, and include any feedback from the physio if the employee is willing to share.

I don't have experience with mouse arm, but have dealt with carpal tunnel and shoulder strains which made driving a non-power steered car quite difficult.

There probably is a link because trigger finger and mouse finger are usually the same and both actions run through the wrist tunnel (whatever that is properly called!). The name of the problem leads to thinking only of computer mice as the only cause, even though it's easy to address mouse-caused issues.

What has he done about it so far?

Nothing ruins your Friday like finding out it's only Thursday.

I would see this as a tick box exercise from clients seeking assurance that training matrices, competencies, drug test results etc are being done.

Therefore I would give them access to confirm for themselves that it is being done, without allowing them to take copies, photos or any other record of the individuals information. Why would anyone want to waste their time taking copies of information they are likely to do nothing with?

Or Alternately assign all staff a number and hand the info over without any staff names or identifying data.

On a previous role the trend analysis showed up a similar low level trend which led to talking with the people at the coalface about why it was occurring. We ended up swapping out tools which stopped the events from occurring again.

After the solution came from the coal face it was sent up the ladder and then back down to the toolbox talk to confirm the solution has been instigated which allowed the people at the coalface to see the positive effect they were having on the system.

Perhaps the order of who is discussing solutions should start with the people who it is firstly affecting.

Chocolate as unexpected rewards is always a winner to grab audience attention. That Pavlov fulla was really onto something!

Be unexpected - when I explain the heirarchy of controls (words that I never actually use) and it comes to PPE, I use a drawing I found on the internet of a stick figure parachuting off a cliff (parachute is still in the back pack so it actually looks like a pregnant person falling backwards off a cliff). Until it is explained no one guesses what it is but it makes a great story to explain the pitfalls of PPE and why it is last option.

Use powerpoint to emphasise what you say rather than load all the words onto powerpoint and create death by powerpoint. DbPpt also includes using fancy transitions, long transitions, a gazillion pages, lots of bullet points etc. Powerpoint is just something to occupy eyes while you occupy ears and brains.

Have fun!

Love this!

I have come to the conclusion that many people don't know about change management (organisational rather than project). But it is powerful stuff in the H&S field and I have found it a very successful way to get people on board.

Our jobs should be to get people to think and communicate... and then health and safety will be an outcome from there if we get the other management ducks lined up in a row as well.

Hi Chris.
Not sure if this helps, but I work for a national church and went through the same line of questioning. Here is how we solved it.

The church agreed to do its utmost to care for its people. We use the HSWA to help us do this. Therefore we bypass who is/isn't a PCBU and WorkSafe will have to sort it out if something goes wrong. And of course if we do things right, then things won't go wrong.

It leans into moral obligations rather than legal obligations but achieves exactly the same thing. And it saved me from having to educate people about PCBUs - in fact I don't even use that term! I don't have to differentiate between volunteer or employee very often either.

Removing the question of "must we do it this way or not?" and using "is this the right thing to do?" makes life a lot easier.

some old painter - got grumpy when I yelled at him after I put out his drop sheet fire from his cigarette butt 1988
Geoff - forearm broken in 3 places after getting wrapped in a 'stuck' security grill gate 1991
Warren - mesothelioma, 2000
Frank - caught in crane guide ropes, 2004
Alan - mesothelioma, 2019

not all of us were lucky enough to have mentors.

I love the pockets of resistance, they have practical points of views about situations... once you can get them talking. I will generalise and say that these groups are problem solvers and don't like being told what to do. So present a problem and get them to solve it.

I recommend a consensus approach. Consensus is not 100% agreement, it is a right to have your say and be heard, but the majority still rules. They might not be able to vote on what the end goal is, but they get to choose a path to get there.

I ran a workshop with a lot of older gentlemen, I targetted one that walked in with that glint in his eye (aka the troublemaker). After introductions, I then specifically invited him to play a particular role in the upcoming discussions of being grumpy and cantankerous even though it was likely to be contrary to his calm and kind demeanour. How could he refuse!

This achieved two things:
1. a bit of laughter to start the meeting,
2. and it gave me the right to check in with him on sticky issues to get the 'other' point of view.

We had a great open and honest discussion because it wasn't expected that everyone was going to play nicely. People had a right to be grumpy but to exercise that right they had to speak up which lets you explore where the obstacles are to achieving the desired outcome.

From there, lead the group discussion to where you want it "I hear what you say about obstacle xyz, so given obstacle xyz how would you achieve goal abc?"

"I've been in the industry 30 years... (and so on)" You: "That's awesome! Then how would you achieve goal abc, particularly with less experienced people involved?"

That sounds like a great idea however the login issue is a bit of a drag. Any perceived obstacle will hinder participation.

For example if I open up all the interesting looking chats from the Safeguard Forum update email that comes out, I have to log into every page to make a comment on the chat - therefore I read but tend not to comment.

:smile:

We used Teams during lockdown which was a good way to keep in touch but I would call it scrubby. Either that or the way that we used it was scrubby. Which possibly points to the issue being the time involved to set it up nicely.

My main user problem was lack of organisation to the posts so the responses to posts can end up all over the place which made it very difficult to track conversations. So there were no involved conversations held on Teams.

It was cheerful though!

I wouldn't use it as a primary tool without a good effort to set it up effectively.

I am just about to launch into this space also. My thoughts are to use multiple media types to maximise audience access, and have the media types back each other up.
It all sounds a bit round-a-bout but so is the makeup/demographics of my audience.
It also involves more people than the ones inside my head, and seeks to maximise the tools at our disposal since I am seeking out our tools and communications experts (my role is to supervise the material going out and not be the expert on all of the tools).
I find that this approach brings people onto the team that otherwise might not have joined, and it opens my mind up to things that I hadn't thought of.

Amy's approach is extremely similar and it sounds like her team have fun with it also.

Fun is important.