The Safety of Work

In order to frame our discussion, we use the paper Fads and Fashions in Management Practices. Topics: Recent changes in the spread of ideas. Where new management techniques come from. How innovations get labeled. How messages often get broadcast. Six Sigma training. The acceleration and deceleration of broadcasting. Why general ideas are more diffuse. Be conscious of the differences between academ...

The paper we use to frame today’s discussion is Leading or Lagging? Temporal Analysis of Safety Indicators on a Large Infrastructure Construction Project.   Topics: Similarities between Economists and safety professionals. Definitions of performance measures. The researchers methods for this study. What the data showed about this particular organization. Errors in human reporting. Practical takeaw...

Tune in to hear our discussion and insights. Topics: Journals and how content gets submitted. Using Google Scholar instead of Google. Search tips. How to request copies of papers. University access to research papers. How to determine what is being measured in a paper. Internal and external validity. The difference between papers and books. Why you shouldn’t pay for papers.   Quotes: “The basic ru...

We use the paper How Logical is Safety? to frame our discussion.   Topics: On what institutional logic focuses. Why institutional logic gives us a fresh start. Local rationalities. How the authors of the paper compiled their research. The seven logics. Understanding institutional logics. Why it’s hard to change institutional logics.   Quotes: “There’s some real challenges with the way that we’ve a...

We use the paper, How Institutions Enhance Mindfulness , to help frame our discussion. Topics: Mindful organizing. How the researchers conducted their survey and how it affected results. When the regulators are from the government. Four key activities that enhance safety. Why the org in the study leaned towards punishment rather than education. The two disparate views within the paper. How to crea...

We use the papers to frame our discussion: A Systematic Review of the Effectiveness, Compliance, and Critical Factors for Implementation of Safety Checklists in Surgery ; Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Effect of the World Health Organization Surgical Safety Checklist on Post-Operative Complications;  and The Effects of Safety Checklists in Medicine. Tune in to hear our thoughts on this...

We use David’s paper, Benefactor or Burden, to frame our discussion today. Topics: The distinction between role and identity. The stereotypes about the safety profession. Saturation. What to consider when hiring safety employees. Tertiary education. Change and the journey of safety. The values of safety professionals. What is important to talk about, when talking about safety professionals. Quotes...

We use the paper, What Constitutes Effective Manual Handling Training,  in order to frame our discussion. The paper is a systematic review that looks at fifty three intervention studies performed over a number of years. Topics: Why training is the cornerstone of the workplace. Why it’s important to evaluate training. The results of the various studies discussed within today’s paper. The varying qu...

Dave is joined by special guest, Dr. Laura Maguire, a researcher at the Cognitive Systems Engineering Lab at Ohio State University. Her recent research pertains to the topic at hand. Tune in to hear our informative discussion.   Topics: ● Dr. Maguire’s personal relationship to safety. ● Exploring coordinated joint activity in the tech industry. ● The difficulty of doing research in the natural lab...

We use the paper, Embracing Complexity,  to frame our discussion. Tune in to hear our chat about this important issue.   Topics: The definition of a team. What unit to study when researching teams. Compositional and structural features. Mediating mechanisms. Average member attributes and how they contribute to performance. How diversity affects teams. Fault lines. How to measure a team’s success....

We use the following papers to frame our discussion: Development and Test of a Model Linking Safety Specific Transformational Leadership and Occupational Safety  and Contrasting the Nature and Effects of Environmentally Specific and General Transformational Leadership.   Topics: How leadership is studied. The two-part study conducted in Development and Test . Are environmentally specific and gener...

Dave isn’t here today. Instead, Drew speaks directly with the author of the paper we intended to use to frame our discussion. Tune in to hear his discussion with Tanya Hewitt.    Topics: Discomfort with non-technical topics. Why some people are seasoned users of reporting systems. Pride in being a fixer. Feedback loops in reporting systems. Questioning the value of given instructions. Why qualitat...

Drew isn’t here today and in his stead is Professor David Woods. Tune in to hear his discussion of graceful extensibility and how it applies to the current battle with Covid19. Topics: Unwittingly developing theories. Building resilience in organizations. Framing his theory in terms of current events. How the brain deals with changes. What the data from Covid19 will tell us. Net adaptive value. Sa...

We use the following articles to frame our discussion: In Their Profession’s Service and Influencing Organizational Decision-Makers. Topics: The constant frustration of being a safety professional. Rational persuasion and other forms of influence. Publishing outside traditional safety journals. Why it can be hard to define a safety professional’s role. The optics of good connections. Adaptive fram...

Topics: Drew’s recently published paper and how it relates to this topic. Vaccinations and the current wave of anti-vaccination bias. Testing the effects of stories vs. facts. Alternative beliefs. Why we think certain claims are nonsense.   Quotes: “They found that the one that has a story of someone whose child has had measles along with the photo with the measles, had a very strong effect on att...

Topics: Divulging our potential conflicts of interest. Hindsight bias. The four different mental processes used in assessing accidents. How the raft ride worked on a good day. The first river raft fatality on record. Various river raft incidents on record. The factors that lead to the accident at Dreamworld. Potential conclusions from this case. Quotes: “When I was reflecting after this incident, ...

We have just co-authored a paper with two other researchers and it examines the big picture of safety science. We don’t usually like to plug ourselves, but we’re very excited about this particular accomplishment. We use his paper, A Manifesto for Reality-Based Safety Science,  to frame our discussion. Topics: Why practitioners shouldn’t  tune out this podcast. Evidence-based medicine as a reform m...

We chose to use two papers to frame our discussion. Those papers are Construction Safety Training Using Immersive Virtual Reality  and Comparing Immersive Virtual Reality and PowerPoint as Methods for Delivering Safety Training. Let us know if and how you are using Virtual Reality in your business. Topics: VR research is a mixed bag. How VR training works. Advantages to VR training. How VR trainin...

We use the paper When Redundant On-Screen Text in Multimedia Technical Instruction can Interfere with Learning to frame our discussion. Topics: This problem existed before Microsoft. Do presentation slides help you communicate? Text on slides serving as a distraction. What the cognitive load theory tells us. Changing one’s approach to presentations. Quotes: “I think people genuinely think it’s a g...

Tune in to hear Carsten discuss his research into Heinrich’s work. Topics: The impetus behind Carsten’s paper. What his paper covered. Why Heinrich’s ratio is so important. Why capable workers are the most important factor in safety. How corporations use Heinrich’s ratio in testing. Heinrich’s overall impact and legacy. Quotes: “It’s interesting the way you go on to say that he wasn’t actually say...

Tune in to hear us discuss the lessons learned from this important report. Topics: Why the Brady Report was made. The pros and cons of this type of study. Malcolm Jones’ paper about grief cycles in business. Why fatalities aren’t extraordinary events. HRO theories and programs. Why LTI’s aren’t relevant. Why reported incidents aren’t a negative indicator. How fatalities could have possibly been av...

To frame our discussion, we use the papers. Motivating the Workforce and The Demotivating Effect (and Unintended Message) of Awards.  Tune in to hear our discussion about whether prizes encourage further safety or are just a silly pat-on-the-back. Topics: Are prizes a marketing exercise or encouraging actual safety? What is the motivation behind your organization’s awards for safety? Behavioral ec...

To frame our discussion, we use the common High Reliability Organization Theory. A few people have authored papers on this topic and we will use their work during our chat. Topics: What defines an HRO’s modus operandi. Why it was revolutionary to study successful organizations. Being transparent about research methods. The difficult job of figuring out who the “expert” is, in a given situation. Th...

To frame our discussion, we decided to reference a few papers. The papers we use are Females Do Not Have More Road Accidents on Friday the 13th, Much Ado About the Full Moon, and Moon Phases and Nighttime Road Crashes Involving Pedestrians. Tune in to hear our chat! Topics: Calendar effects. Gendered calendar effects. The full moon effect. Contradictory studies. Superstitious safety practitioners....

We use the papers, Zero Accident, Vision-Based Strategies in Organizations; Zero Vision, Enlightenment, and Religion; and UK Construction Safety: A Zero Paradox to frame our discussion. Tune in to hear what we think! Topics: The concept of zero-harm. The pros and cons of a zero-harm approach. When management makes safety-focused decisions. Can zero-harm lead to distorted reporting? Can you accurat...