Workplace harassment - a health issue: Anti-discrimination cases and work compensation claims

This article describes the adverse health-related effects of racial and sexual harassment elicited from files held by the Western Australian Equal Opportunity Commission where the complainant has nominated sexual or racial harassment as a ground of discrimination. Those results are compared with publicly available data on work-related stress claims obtained from the Compendium of Workers' Compensation Statistics Australia 2004-06, arising from allegations of harassment. Information gleaned from a survey of unreported court decisions (from publicly available legal data bases, such as www.austlii.edu.au and www.ohs.alert.com) is also reviewed. The purpose of examining this data is to consider the links between various forms of unlawful harassment, workplace stress and the evidence of adverse effect upon worker health. The results of this triangulation of data are consistent with that body of research which shows that workplace harassment can give rise to a range of adverse health outcomes. This paper explores how the inter-relationship of anti-discrimination and workers compensation laws may affect claimant behaviours

Psychopathic leadership a case study of a corporate psychopath CEO

This longitudinal case study reports on a charity in the UK which gained a new CEO who was reported by two middle managers who worked in the charity, to embody (respectively) all or most of the ten characteristics within a measure of corporate psychopathy. The leadership of this CEO with a high corporate psychopathy score was reported to be so poor that the organisation was described as being one without leadership and as a lost organisation with no direction. This paper outlines the resultant characteristics of the ensuing aimlessness and lack of drive of the organisation involved. Comparisons are made to a previous CEO in the same organisation, who was reportedly an authentic, effective and transformational leader. Outcomes under the CEO with a high corporate psychopathy score were related to bullying, staff withdrawal and turnover as effective employees stayed away from and/or left the organisation. Outcomes also included a marked organisational decline in terms of revenue, employee commitment, creativity and organisational innovativeness. The paper makes a contribution to both leadership and to corporate psychopathy research as it appears to be the first reported study of a CEO with a high corporate psychopathy score

Business continuity plan practices within the risk management profession

Abstract not availabl

TRACEr-RAV : modification of the 'Technique for retrospective analysis of cognitive errors' for Australian rail use

There is currently no widely accepted human error identification (HEI) tool used in Australia to identify and classify errors associated with rail accidents and incidents. The aim of this paper is to outline an attempt to develop a HEI tool for Australian use. The Technique for the Retrospective and Predictive Analysis of Cognitive Errors (TRACEr) is a HEI tool initially developed for air traffic control and subsequently revised and adopted in the UK as a rail-specific tool for train driving (TRACEr-Rail). In applying TRACEr-rail to an Australian sample of incidents and accidents, only moderate inter-rater reliability was demonstrated. The tool was also unable to classify adequately all the errors (and factors associated with errors) extracted from incident reports. In an attempt to improve the consistency with which the tool is applied and the tool's capacity to identify and categorise train driver errors in Australia, the tool was modified to become TRACEr-RAV (TRACEr-for Rail, Australian Version). Changes to TRACEr-Rail included the addition and omission of some error categories, revision of many of the category definitions, the provision of more appropriate examples, and the adoption of more Australian terminology. This paper outlines the difficulties encountered while using TRACEr-Rail and the changes made to the tool. It also describes the process of design for a study aimed to establish the reliability and usability of our new tool, TRACEr-RAV.9 page(s

Strategies to improve the communication of probability information in risk analyses

Difficulties in interpreting probabilities can impede the progress of risk analyses and impair the communication of risk information to stakeholders. This review examines how people have problems in interpreting probability information, leading to several strategies for improved understanding. The inconsistent translation of probability terms to numerical expressions, and the biases that influence their interpretation, highlight the need to improve the communication of probabilities wherever possible. Current probability communication strategies from medicine and behavioural science, such as natural frequencies and systematic ovals, are reviewed. Practical complications presented by large-scale risk analyses may be solved by conveying key probabilities graphically, providing recurrent guide material throughout documentation, or using stakeholder workshops. While various disciplines can guide the development of improved communication tools for probabilities, research specific to their use in risk management applications needs to be conducted

The Impact of the ON-S1 standard on railway risk levels in Australia

The objective of this study was to compare risk levels, based on reported railway occurrences, across Australian states. A secondary aim was to use these numbers to assess the impact of a new reporting system, ON-S1, introduced in 2004, on the calculated risk levels. The Australian nationwide standard, ON-S1, defines how to categorize occurrences and their consequences, but it has not been consistently applied in all states. For example, New South Wales and Victoria use broader definitions of 'serious injury' than specified in ON-S1. This paper outlines challenges related to ON-S1's use and the appropriateness of calculating risks based on reported occurrences. Railway occurrence data from five Australian states/territories from 2001 to 2007 were reviewed. Data on fatalities, serious injuries and train kilometres were obtained from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) and The Independent Transport Safety and reliability Regulator's (ITSRR) safety reports. We used these data to calculate an index of Fatalities and Weighted Injuries (FWI), normalized for train kilometres. The results showed that the average annual risk per million train kilometres for the entire period (2001-2007) was highest in New South Wales (FWI 1.28), followed by Victoria (FWI 0.89), South Australia (FWI 0.77), Queensland (FWI 0.34) and Western Australia (FWI 0.26). Following the introduction of ON-S1, the FWI in New South Wales and Victoria doubled from 2004 to 2006. These trends continued into the first half of 2007. The other states showed a stable or decreasing trend. The highest risk appeared to be in the states with the largest populations containing Australia's largest cities. The use of train kilometres to normalize occurrence rates may be inappropriate because this measure does not take into account the number of people travelling on each train. The sharp increase in reported occurrences in New South Wales and Victoria may reflect the misuse of ON-S1, because a similar increase was not observed in the other states. The large difference in risk level between states highlights a need for consistent application of the national reporting regime in Australia to enable valid comparisons of occurrence rates between states.6 page(s