Rules will not be followed – and you are expected to deal with that

~ My safety thoughts ~ 2 Comments

I recently posted an article entitled The Safety Paradox and the challenge of health and safety assurance which generated quite a lot of discussion on LinkedIn and elsewhere.

One discussion went as follows:

Comment:

How do we know or can we know “that not all safety initiatives are always good, and that safety initiatives can undermine safety”? And Could this; “Research into JHAs and other frontline risk assessment tools shows how they can disengage the workforce from the organisation’s health and safety message” be used to avoid personal accountability? Do not agree at all to this comment “To my mind, the assumption that we are doing something in the name of health and safety, and therefore it must be good and it must be achieving the purpose for which it is intended is one of the foundational building blocks for the Illusion of Safety, and must be challenged” Greg, can you tell me one Safety law made that was not created for health and welling? Are you ignoring the fact the system does not allow for us to follow the safe ways? and that even if it does people just violate rules anyway for self-gain! I see a lot of hindsight Bias here!

Response:

 … all safety laws and safety initiatives are created with a positive outcome in mind. I accept that. However, I do not accept that just because we have a positive intention, this will result in a positive outcome. We have an obligation to know if our initiatives are achieving the positive outcome or not. I also accept that people will violate rules – indeed the law recognises that and says to businesses, in developing your rules you must be aware that people will violate them – therefore you have a positive obligation to supervise your systems to understand/minimise the violations

I felt that the comment warranted a deeper response, especially in relation to the idea that the law recognises that people will violate safety rules, and that our safety management systems have to take account of this likelihood.

At its simplest, safety management requires us to develop “proper system” to manage the health and safety risks in our business, and ensure “adequate supervision” to understand if those systems have been implemented and are operating effectively. The Royal Commission into the 1998 Esso Longford Gas Plant Explosion, in its observations of the level of non-compliance with operating procedures noted:

… the evidence suggests that some of the failings were so prevalent as to have become almost standard operating practice. These practices could not have developed or survived had there been adequate supervision of day to day operations by Esso management. [paragraph 13.33] (my emphasis added)

This idea of “systemic failure” as opposed of a “one-off departure” from an otherwise effective system was a topic I looked at in a short, 4-and-a-half-minute video, One-off departure or systemic failure if you want to explore that notion further.

What the Longford Royal Commission confirms is that understanding worker non-compliance with safety procedures is a known phenomenon, and it impacts both parts of the safety equation:

Proper Systems – our systems must take account of the fact that workers will not comply with the systems; and

Adequate supervision – we must continually monitor our safety management systems to identify and address non-compliance.

This was recently articulated in Comcare v Transpacific Industries Pty Ltd [2012] FCA 90:

I accept the submission made on behalf of Comcare that one of the significant reasons for legislation such as the OHS Act is that, on many occasions, industrial health and safety mechanisms need to be put in place by an employer to guard against the possibility that employees generally or particular employees might ignore what would seem to be imprudent behaviour, not just because they are fooling around, skylarking or acting up, but because they have a genuine desire to get about their employer’s work and might have a tendency, on occasion, to disregard procedures that are designed to protect them from injury or indeed loss of life. In short, occupational health and safety standards are put in place, apart from any other reason, sometimes to protect employees against themselves. [51]

This was also a concept expressed in the Montara Commission of Inquiry during cross examination

[Mr Howe QC]:     No, I mean would he also have taken the position that he couldn’t, as it were, credit that corners might be cut or people might lose sight of proper procedures because they were diverted to endeavours to save time and money, and the like?

[Mr Jacob]             I would think so, but obviously I can’t talk for him.

[Mr Howe QC]:     What about your CEO – do you think the CEO shared that same approach?

[Mr Jacob]             Again, I don’t think anybody in the organisation would credit that things would be done to the detriment of safety for the benefit of cost.

[Mr Howe QC]:     I want to suggest to you, sir, that that very evidence reveals a problem, namely, that no-one in the organisation seems to have properly credited the known phenomenon that when people are pursuing efficiencies and time savings and cost savings, they can lose sight of the need to observe proper procedures.

[Mr Jacob]             Sorry, could you repeat the first part of that?

[Mr Howe QC]:     Yes.  You seem to be saying that, to your knowledge or understanding, no-one in PTT would have credited at the time that people involved in well management and well control might have succumbed to any sort of corner-cutting or inattention to proper procedures by virtue of the desire to achieve time and cost savings.

[Mr Jacob]             Mmm-hmm, yes.

[Mr Howe QC]:     I’m suggesting to you that the very fact that you are giving that evidence identifies a problem, namely, senior management did not properly recognise the plain fact of ordinary human nature and a known phenomenon, namely, when you have lots of people applying themselves to achieving time and financial efficiencies, they can lose sight of the need to properly attend to processes.

[Mr Jacob]             On the basis that there weren’t systems in place to ensure that the barriers, et cetera, were identified as being in place and verified and that, yes, I can accept that.

(my emphasis added)

 (Jacob, A. 2010. Transcript: Montara Commission of Inquiry transcript.  http://www.montarainquiry.gov.au/transcripts.html (accessed 29 September 2010), 1784).

Finding 42 (page 141) from the Inquiry reflected this examination:

PTTEPAA did not have effective internal systems in place to achieve a high level of quality assurance with respect to well control operations. In particular, systems were not in place to ensure (i) vigilant day‐to‐day supervision of subordinate personnel; (ii) monitoring of well operations through internal audits.

The history of fatalities and major accident inquiries paint a consistent picture for businesses. You are expected to be able to demonstrate that you have proper systems to manage the health and safety risks in your business, and you are expected to be able to demonstrate that those systems were adequately supervised. An outcome of adequate supervision is that organisations should be able to show, at any point in time that they understand how well these systems are implemented, and whether they are working – whether they are managing the risks as intended.

To borrow from the language of the Pike River Royal Commission, organisations should be able to prove the effectiveness of their crucial systems.

What is also consistent, is the recognition that workers, for a range of reason, including the genuine desire to get about their employer’s work, will not always comply with the rules, processes and procedures designed to protect them. An essential element of proper systems and adequate supervision is to recognise the capacity for non-compliance and take account of it.

 

One-off departure or systemic failure

~ My safety thoughts ~ 3 Comments

A key, although not well articulated, theme that underpins the prosecution of a workplace accident is the extent to which the relevant “failures” were “one-off departures” from an otherwise effective, well implemented and understood system, as opposed to evidence of “systemic failure“.

To try and explain the difference, I have produced a short, 4 and a half minute video.

I hope you find it useful.

The Safety Paradox and the challenge of health and safety assurance

~ My safety thoughts ~ 14 Comments

I am currently working on a new book on practical health and safety assurance, which I hope to have out by the end of the year, but I recently came across an article published through LinkedIn entitled Six Mistakes H&S Managers Make with Occupational Health & Safety.

I do not want to comment on the article itself, although it is worth a read. It was the following paragraph that caught my attention, and goes to the heart of what I am trying to explore in the context of health and safety assurance.

Habits are what save us when our mind is not consciously on the job. Many of the health and safety systems we use (such as Take-5s, prestart talks, and health and safety observations) are aimed at creating habits in people’s minds so that they are constantly aware of hazards in the work environment, and can react when they see something that is about to hurt them. Each little action and health and safety discussion might not prevent an incident itself, but they all add together to create valuable health and safety habits. Do not think that you are repeating this training or talk for the millionth time and that you are wasting time and money. When the crisis hits it will probably be these repetitive sessions that will prevent great harm or loss.

First, let me explain what I mean by the Safety Paradox. The Safety Paradox is my theory that all health and safety initiatives have within them the potential to both improve and undermine safety, and one of the significant ways that safety initiatives undermine safety is by contributing to the Illusion of Safety.

The Illusion of Safety is characterised by the Gap between the safety system as we imagine it, and the system in practice, and it is often caused by activity: Because we are doing a lot of stuff for safety, it must all be good and positive and lead to a good safety outcome.

We know that not all safety initiatives are always good, and that safety initiatives can undermine safety.

Research into JHAs and other frontline risk assessment tools shows how they can disengage the workforce from the organisation’s health and safety message, but at the same time create an unfounded sense of comfort in management that workers have – and are using – appropriate tools to manage risk (See for example: D. Borys, Exploring risk awareness as a cultural approach to safety: Exposing the gap between work as imagined and work as actually performed).

The Baker Panel Review into the BP Texas City Refinery Explosion referred to “initiative overload”, identifying that many well intentioned safety initiatives may have overloaded refinery personnel to the detriment of safety.

To my mind, the assumption that we are doing something in the name of health and safety, and therefore it must be good and it must be achieving the purpose for which it is intended is one of the foundational building blocks for the Illusion of Safety, and must be challenged.

So, in this case when the author says:

Many of the health and safety systems we use (such as Take-5s, prestart talks, and health and safety observations) are aimed at creating habits in people’s minds so that they are constantly aware of hazards in the work environment, and can react when they see something that is about to hurt them

Health and safety assurance requires us to understand that this outcome, this purpose – creating habits in people’s minds so that they are constantly aware of hazards in the work environment – is actually being achieved. The assumption that the purpose is being achieved flies in the face of the Safety Paradox, contributes to the Illusion of Safety and undermines safety and health in the workplace.

Health and safety assurance requires us to understand the potential negative outcomes of these safety activities. For example, to what extent does the constant requirement to fill out a piece of paper before every job (i.e. a Take – 5) desensitise the workforce to risk, trivialise risk or make the workforce think that management doesn’t trust them? To what extent does the workforce believe that these pre-job processes and signature collections are management’s attempt to, adopting the language of the Borys article above, “cover their arse”?

It is wholly insufficient for the safety industry to say that these safety initiatives are theoretically good processes, but not understand the potential negative outcomes nor to invest the time and energy to understand whether the safety initiatives are achieving their intended purposes.

And when the author goes on to say:

Do not think that you are repeating this training or talk for the millionth time and that you are wasting time and money. When the crisis hits it will probably be these repetitive sessions that will prevent great harm or loss.

surely there must be some onus to understand whether this thing that has been done for the “millionth time” is not having a negative effect? I can think of nothing more damaging for health and safety in the workplace than doing something for the “millionth time” and not knowing if it is achieving its purpose, or more damaging, undermining its intended purpose.

The safety industry must be accountable for its initiatives, and management must hold the safety industry accountable. It is simply unacceptable to continue to pump initiatives and processes into organisations on the theoretical assumption that they are “good” for safety without being able to demonstrate that those initiatives and processes are achieving the purpose which they were designed.

By the way, your injury rate performance is not a measure of whether your health and safety initiatives are achieving the purpose.

 

 

 

Social Psychology of Risk: Perth Workshop

~ My safety thoughts ~ Leave a comment

This is just a quick note to my Perth contacts who might be interested in attending a Social Psychology of Risk Workshop run by Dr Rob Long, Craig Ashhurst and Roy Fitzgerald.

The workshop comes highly recommended from former participants, and offers an engaging, interactive hands-on experience with challenging new ideas about the psychology of culture and risk.

When

9, 10, 11 August 2016
8am to 4pm each day

Where

The Tradewinds Hotel, 59 Canning Highway, East Fremantle, WA 6158

You can access more information about the workshop at the links below:

Course details and registration

PDF Flyer and course information

The logic of safety penalties and prosecutions

~ My safety thoughts ~ Leave a comment

Recently, the Victorian Government made some noise about increasing  penalties for breaches of health and safety legislation, with maximum fines increasing to $3M. This is consistent with most jurisdiction in Australia, and the drive for significant personal and corporate penalties for breaches of health and safety legislation has always been a feature of the safety industry in Australia.

Recently I wrote about the value of safety prosecutions ($450,000 is this what we want from safety prosecutions), and argued for an alternative model:

What if, rather than prosecutions, organisations who have had accidents could opt in to a safety learning program. In this case, for example, a detailed investigation and research project to understand all of the factors influencing the incident. Not just the role of the employers and workers, but also the regulator, the way safety information is made available and the best ways to help small and medium sized businesses implement a safety program.

  • The project would be paid for by the employer – so there is still a financial penalty.
  • Both the incident and the research could be highly publicised to add to the deterrent value.
  • Valuable lessons would be available within months, as opposed to meaningless factual statements after years.

Prosecutions can, and should still be reserved for the worst classes of offence but these would be very limited. [my emphasis added]

It has been reported by the ABC today (9 July 2016) that a Queensland electrical contractor has been charged with manslaughter following a fatality at a building site.

Leaving aside the merits of the individual case, this action does beg the question, why all the fuss about penalties in health and safety legislation if they are not used for the most serious offences? What does it say about health and safety legislation as an avenue for legitimate criminal prosecutions?

More importantly, would health and safety legislation be a better tool for improving health and safety in workplaces if it was not based on prosecution and fear, but had legitimate mechanisms for the promotion and sharing of lessons about workplace safety?

Is there an argument that says health and safety legislation should focus on workplace health and safety, and it should be left to the criminal law processes to deal with serious failures of workplace safety? Alternatively, if health and safety legislation is an appropriate tool to punish individuals and organisations, shouldn’t it be used when the opportunity arises?

If not, then what was all that harmonisation fear mongering about?

 

 

 

WHS reform in WA “delayed” again

~ My safety thoughts ~ Leave a comment

The latest minutes from the Western Australian Ministerial Advisory Panel on Safety Legislation Reform have confirmed what probably comes as no surprise to anyone anymore – that the proposed Work Health and Safety (Resources) Bill has been delayed yet again, this time by about 6 months.

The minutes of the meeting record:

Work Health and Safety (Resources) Bill

Parliamentary Counsel’s Office (PCO) commenced drafting the Bill during February 2016 and is continuing to liaise with DMP during the drafting process. 

However, due to delays in this drafting process, the Department has obtained approval from the Minister to postpone implementation of the legislation to 1 July 2017. An updated timeline has been provided to MAP members as Attachment 3.

It is expected that the Bill will be ready for introduction to Parliament in August 2016.

Given that a State election is pencilled in for March 2017, I would not be rushing to adjust my safety management processes on the basis of legislative changes anytime soon.

Due diligence: understanding performance or measuring activity?

~ My safety thoughts ~ 3 Comments

This morning I was doing some work with contractors talking about the concept of health and safety assurance, both in the context of reasonably practicable and due diligence.

One of my areas of interest and concern when working with organisations to understand if their health and safety risks are being managed, is that a great deal that is done in the name of safety and health is characterised and measured in terms of “activity”. In my experience, very little regard is had to the “purpose” of the activity, whether that activity achieves the relevant purpose and whether the purpose is beneficial for safety and health outcomes.

I have looked at these issues previously in my articles, A short primer on due diligence and Lead indicators: Reinforcing the illusion of safety.

As an example, the group discussed the idea of management “walk arounds” or safety conversations. Amongst the group we were able to identify a number of potential “purposes” for this activity, including to confirm whether risks were being controlled, to demonstrate management commitment to safety and to understand any concerns from the workforce.

Most of the organisations involved in the discussion had the “number” of safety conversations managers held as a key performance indicator.

In every case however, the only measure applied to this management task was the number done, that is a measure of “activity”. There was no measure, or even consideration given to, whether this management activity was effective in achieving the purpose. Moreover, none of the organisations had even turned their mind to the possible negative ramifications of this management activity.

In my experience, whatever the intention of the manager while conducting a walk around or safety conversation, if they are perceived by the workforce as being an unnecessary intrusion on their working day or worse, a manager simply trying to tick their KPI’s for the month, they can have profound, negative effects on health and safety and completely disengaged the workforce from the safety message that managers are trying to deliver.

100% compliance with the scheduled numbers of management safety conversations might look good on a traffic light scorecard and might give a sense of comfort, but there is a significant risk that the activity is actually undermining safety performance and contributing to the illusion of safety.

I am not saying all management activities are negative, I am just saying that most organisations do not know what the impact is. Rather, we make assumptions based on the numbers – if we do a lot, the outcome must be good.

Is it?

Having finished the morning discussions, I was reading the news from ABC online, when I came across the following article:

Eddie McGuire’s comments ‘incredibly disappointing’, Cabinet ministers say

The article deals with the recent controversy over comments by various AFL football commentators in the context of violence against women.

Christian Porter, the Social Services Minister linked the comments to the Government’s new $30 million domestic violence campaign, and the report goes on to state:

According to Mr Porter, the Stop it at the Start campaign has already had 25 million individual views, making it the most successful domestic violence campaign launched by any Government. [My emphasis added]

I could accept this comment if the “purpose” of the campaign was to get as many individual views as possible. However, I would have thought a more appropriate measure of success for a domestic violence campaign – one that is presumably linked to its “purpose” – would be a reduction in the instance of domestic violence.

A similar dilemma occurred a number of years ago in relation to Victorian railway safety and the “dumb ways to die” campaign. This campaign was also hailed as a success based on its very high level of traction in social media, although I understand the number of fatalities on Victorian railways actually increased (see for example Dr Rob Long’s comments in Dumb Ways to Die and a Strange Sense of Success).

It seems that style over substance, or activity over purpose is not limited to health and safety management, but it does represent a threat to the management of whatever problem it is applied to.

Health and safety initiatives are, or at least should be, designed to achieve outcomes in the workplace. They are not initiatives for their own sake, nor are they perpetuated as wellsprings of activity.

Every health and safety initiative should have a clearly articulated understanding of its purpose, and a set of criteria by which that purpose will be achieved. We also need to bear in mind the ongoing safety paradox; while safety initiatives have within them the potential to improve health and safety, equally they have the potential to undermine health and safety and make our workplaces less safe.

What do you know about your safety initiatives?

 

Lessons from recent safety prosecutions

~ My safety thoughts ~ 3 Comments

Anyone who has been following my thoughts and comments through this blog will understand that I have concerns about the prosecution process, and the role that it plays in improving (or otherwise) safety management.

You can see some examples of my commentary here:

$450,000: is this what we want from prosecutions?

Do we need to rethink safety prosecutions?

Rethinking safety prosecutions part 2

is this really what due diligence was designed for?

On 19 June 2016 I posted a report about an abandoned health and safety prosecution in the ACT. You can read the article at this link:

Calls for charge after stalled prosecution over Ben Catanzariti’s death at work

The article also referenced an earlier prosecution in the ACT, Kenoss Contractors, saying:

“There was a sense of deja vu about the Catanzeriti case.

Last year, Kenoss Contractors were fined more than a million dollars after being found guilty of significant safety breaches after truck driver Michael Booth was electrocuted by low slung electricity wires.

There were no warning signs and the wires were not marked out with safety flags.

But Kenoss had already gone into liquidation, and it is unknown if the fine will ever be paid.

Charges against engineer Munir Al Hasani, who was charged as an officer of the company, were set aside by the Magistrate on a technicality.” [My emphasis]

I do not want to explore the Kenoss case in this article, except to say that the charges against Mr Al Hasani did not fail on a “technicality”. To suggest they did, implies that there was some minor all the relevant error – there was not.

Mr Al Hasani was charged as a company officer when he wasn’t. This is not a technicality. The prosecution could not prove a critical element of the case.

Turning to the Catanzeriti case.

Mr Catanzeriti died on a construction site in 2012 when a concrete pump boom fell on him. The evidence strongly suggests that the accident occurred because bolts in the boom failed causing it to fall. What was not so clear, however, was why the bolts failed.

There were at least three plausible explanations for the failure, one being that the bolts had not been done up properly while there were two other explanations that suggested a failure due to metallurgical conditions.

One of the characteristics of criminal prosecutions, which occupational safety and health breaches are, is that the prosecution is bound by the “particulars” of the charges that it brings. It is not an opportunity for a general discussion about whether a workplace was “safe”.

Therefore, if the prosecution alleges that some failure on the part of an employer “caused” an accident, it must be able to prove the cause of the accident.

Because the prosecution in this case felt that they could not prove why the bolts “failed”, they withdrew the charges.

As distressing as this no doubt was for the people involved, it was probably the right decision. This precise requirement was demonstrated as recently as 27 May 2016 in the South Australian decision, Symons v Karl Chehade Dry Cleaning Pty Ltd [ 2016] SAIRC 15.

In that case a worker at a dry cleaning business was badly injured when a piece of machinery designed to iron curtains closed on her hand.

The substance of the allegations was described in opening arguments:

“It’s alleged by the prosecution that the manner in which this PLC had been programmed to control the operation of the plant meant that it was unsafe, and that there were alternative ways of programming that PLC to eliminate or substantially reduce and minimise the risks posed by that curtain press. Indeed, it will be submitted by the prosecution that had the PLC been programmed such as has been set out in particular 1.4, the risk of this incident occurring would be limited or substantially reduced. And, your Honour, that is the crux of the prosecution case.” [31]

Ultimately, the prosecution was unsuccessful, in large part because the prosecution could not demonstrate to the Court what “caused” the incident.

“The difficulty that I have with the complainant’s case is the fact that the evidence did not establish to the requisite degree, what was wrong with the press … or what caused the head to come down [74]

The complainant’s case assumes that the head failed to descend because of a lack of air pressure. It assumes that whatever Mr Johnson did, somehow sufficient air pressure was generated so as to drive the head down against the force of the tension springs that were holding it up. Whilst the evidence establishes these as reasonable hypotheses, it does not establish either beyond a reasonable doubt [78].

Although one can speculate that if those assumptions are correct a change to the PLC such that the head would automatically rise ten seconds after it had descended or a change to the configuration of the press so that the head could only remain in a descended position whilst all buttons were being pressed, might have avoided the unexpected downward movement of the head, without knowing exactly what was wrong with the press, what Mr Johnson did to it, or what exactly caused the downward movement, I cannot be sure.” [79]

The logic flow in these types of prosecutions is reasonably straightforward. If the prosecution alleges that A caused B, and that C would have prevented A from causing B, they must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that A caused B.

In neither the Catanzeriti or the Symons cases does the withdrawal/failure of the prosecution mean that the workplace was “safe”. In the Catanzeriti article, a union representative was reported as saying that other safety issues could have formed the basis of the prosecution, including the lack of exclusion zones and other safety measures such as training.

In all likelihood this is correct. Indeed, the courts from time to time have identified that failed prosecutions did not properly identify matters that should have been the subject of proceedings. For example, in Workcover Authority of New South Wales (Inspector Byer) v Cleary Bros (Bombo) Pty Ltd [2001] NSWIRComm 278 the New South Wales Industrial Relations Commission noted:

“As a result of the foregoing discussion, having regard to the way in which the offence was particularised and the manner in which the case was brought, I do not consider that it was reasonably practicable for the defendant to address the failings identified in the prosecutor’s case. The prosecutor’s case was limited to allegations that the defendant failed to provide an effective barrier and failed to ensure that the area was clean and free of debris. On the evidence before the Court, I am satisfied that the defendant has discharged its onus of proving that it was not reasonably practicable either to erect an effective barrier on the side of the pit catering for mechanically unloading vehicles or to ensure that the area beside the pit was always clean and free of debris so as to ensure that a person could not slip and fall. As a result, the defendant has established a defence under s53 of the Act and the summons must be dismissed [99].

I would observe that there was undoubtedly a serious risk to safety occasioned by the unguarded pit when combined with the presence of substances or fluids on the ground. Mr Buchanan properly conceded that such a risk existed. The gravity of the risk was demonstrated in this case by the injuries sustained by Mr Holloway. However, it was necessary that this risk be addressed by eliminating failings other than those specified in the prosecutor’s case. It was necessary that the risks be addressed by some other means. Whilst it is not the position of the Court to specify what measures were required, it is possible that there were failings in effective supervision, adequate warnings or in the condition of the ground (even aside from the metal plates) that gave rise to the risk. These were not matters that were alleged as part of the prosecution.” [100] [my emphasis]

While I believe that a criminal prosecution regime does have a place in the overall framework of health and safety regulation, I am not convinced that its limitations are properly understood.

Health and safety prosecutions are not an effective framework for understanding and improving workplace health and safety.

History would also suggest they are not a particularly effective framework for punishing health and safety transgressions.

I have suggested an alternative to safety prosecutions in my article, $450,000: is this what we want from prosecutions?, But for the purposes of this article I would just like to leave a thought for the advocates of increased, and more severe occupational safety and health prosecutions, and that is; the more of an adversarial approach we take to dealing with workplace accidents, the more adversarial response you can expect. And one of the consequences of an adversarial process is that you are likely to lose as often as you win.

A win/loss record in occupational safety and health prosecutions adds as much value to our understanding of health and safety management as lost time injury rates.

What do we expect from health and safety prosecutions, and does the current system delivers against those expectations?

Risky Conversations, The Law, Social Psychology and Risk

~ My safety thoughts ~ 4 Comments

New book by Dr Rob Long, Greg Smith and Craig Ashhurst

It is with pleasure I can announce the publication of my new book, Risky Conversations, The Law, Social Psychology and Risk which has been produced in conjunction with Dr Robert Long and Craig Ashurst.

The book is also the 5th in Dr Long’s series on the Social Psychology of Risk.

Risky Conversations

The book is the result of three days of conversations between myself, Dr Long and Craig in February 2016 when we gathered together with Rick Long of InVision Pictures and recorded conversations on twenty three topics in risk and safety. The recorded conversations were transcribed by Max and Sylvia Geyer and then we wrote commentary into the margins of the book (see an example below).

The book is 160 pages and included in the $49.95 price is access to all the videos. In addition a talking book of all the conversations can be purchased for $10.

The book can be purchased here: http://cart.humandymensions.com/?product_cat=books&paged=1

A sample of the Introduction and Chapter 1 can be downloaded here: Risky Conversations Chapter 1

You can see a sample of one of the videos here: https://vimeo.com/162034157

Perth Book Launch: A full launch will be held in Perth on 11 August where all three authors will be present in conjunction with a training day on the Social Psychology of Risk. Details to be announced soon in conjunction with a training day in the Social Psychology of Risk in Perth (to be held in conjunction with IFAP).

Melbourne Book Launch: Kevin Jones (safetyatworkblog) will be launching the book in Melbourne on 27 July (lunch time on day two of the SEEK program). Places for the launch are strictly limited to 30 and can be secured by email toadmin@humandymensions.com Download the SEEK flyer here: http://cart.humandymensions.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/SEEK-Program-Human-Dymensions.pdf). All people participating in the SEEK program receive a complimentary copy of the new book.