The Safety of Work

In this episode, David Provan and Drew Rae examine workplace humor through the lens of psychosocial safety, discussing Helen Lingard, Rita Zhang, and Katie Chan's 2025 paper "Not Just a Joke: Women's Experiences of Workplace Humour in the Australian Construction Industry" published in the Journal of Management in Engineering. The research reveals that 65% of women in construction experience sexual harassment, with humor frequently weaponized to mask discrimination and maintain male dominance in a workforce that is 97% male.

This episode examines research on electronic team monitoring AI systems and their psychological impact on workers. David Provan and Drew Rae discuss a July 2025 study from Cognition, Technology and Work by German researchers exploring how perceived invasiveness of AI monitoring affects team members' stress levels and acceptance. The research included two experimental studies testing different levels of monitoring invasiveness and purposes, from basic email counting to biometric stress monitoring.

In today's episode, David and Drew examine the fundamental problems with just culture models through analysis of a BP case study from the Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries titled "From Individual Behavior to System Weaknesses: the Redesign of the Just Culture Process in an International Energy Company." The discussion centers on how these frameworks, originally designed by Jim Reason to reduce individual blame, often become tools for discipline rather than system improvement, despite well-intentioned redesign efforts.

In today’s episode of the Safety of Work podcast, hosts Drew Rae and David Provan examine the attributes of effective supervision through analysis of McPherson, L., Federico, M., & McNamara, P. (2016). "Safety as a Fifth Dimension in Supervision: Stories from the Frontline" published in Australian Social Work. The study, focused on child and family practice supervision, provides valuable insights into supervisory relationships that can be applied broadly to safety management. Through interviews with 10 practitioners and 10 supervisors, the research identifies eight core themes including safety, emotional support, learning and growth, and leadership behaviors.

Welcome to our first episode for 2025. Is it time to rethink the traditional notion of "safety culture" in today's organizations? Join us as we explore this provocative question, inspired by the article, “Seeking a scientific and pragmatic approach to safety culture in the North American construction industry” by Fred Sherratt, Emi Szabo, and Matthew R. Hallowell in Safety Science Volume 181, January 2025.

In this episode, we dig into conflicting research, question the role of data, and offer practical insights on transforming safety from a compliance burden to a strategic asset. Instead of a research paper, we look into an upcoming Sept/Oct 2024 Harvard Business Review Workplace Health and Safety Magazine Article called "Safety Should Be a Performance Driver - It’s more than just a compliance issue” by Vikas Mittal, Alessandro Piazza, and Sonam Singh.

In this episode, David and Drew delve into what makes a good PowerPoint presentation. They explore the evolution of PowerPoint and its importance in modern business communication, referencing Associate Professor Mitch Ricketts' 2018 paper, "No More Bullet Points: Research-Based Tips for Better Presentations."

Join us for a special episode where we navigate the intriguing world of safety professionals viewed through the lens of literature. Today, we celebrate Dr. David Provan’s first published paper, “Bureaucracy, influence and beliefs: A literature review of the factors shaping the role of a safety professional” by David J. Provan along with Sidney W.A. Dekker and Andrew J. Rae.

Have you ever considered who shoulders the blame when technology fails us catastrophically? Today’s paper by Dr. Katherine Elizabeth Kenny, “Blaming Deadmen: Causes, Culprits, and Chaos in Accounting for Technological Accidents” examines the complex web of causes behind technological accidents. We examine the chilling case of the Waterfall rail tragedy, unraveling the layers of human judgment, mechanical failure, and the systemic implications that ripple through our safety practices. Kenny's insights offer a transformative lens on how we perceive and address the chaos of disasters, challenging us to rethink the assumptions that underpin our search for answers.

Could what we perceive as the bedrock of workplace safety be merely an illusion? Safety audits are supposed to be our safeguard, but Ben Hutchinson, PhD student from the Safety Science Innovation Lab at Griffith University, is here to shatter some long-held beliefs. Ben is a National HSEQ Manager, Fatigue Specialist and Exercise Physiologist with a focus on adaptive and system principles - including system safety. He brings to light the potential gap between the comforting assurance of ‘safety protocols’ and the stark reality of their execution in the workplace. Our discussion traverses the terrain of his research, dissecting the effectiveness of safety management plans and audits, and revealing the unsettling prevalence of "fantasy documents" that promise more than they deliver.

Who would have thought that ‘safety in the workplace’ would eventually extend to our homes? As we navigate the new normal, work-from-home arrangements have emerged as a key component of business continuity plans. This episode unravels the intricacies of health and safety management for remote workers, as we investigate the findings of the paper, "A Systems Model for the Design of Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems, Inclusive of Work from Home Arrangements," published in the Journal of Applied Ergonomics. As we share our candid thoughts on the study conducted, we voice our concerns about the imbalance in participant representation.

David and Drew discuss a research paper published this year in the Journal of Safety Research entitled “Exploring Bias in Incident Investigations: An Empirical Examination Using Construction Case Studies” by Sreeja Thallapureddy et al.