DreamWorld and the importance of training records.

[fly_tornado]

CEO finally resigned on Friday

 

Dreamworld chief resigns after damning evidence at inquest

 

 

[old man emu]

I disagree with Yenn that it is all a matter of ticking boxes and nobody is supposed to fail".

 

There is no pass or fail. If people, especially auditors, understand its purpose then the effect of an audit is to point out if an organisation has followed or strayed from its intended course of action. If it has strayed, then the audit shows that fact and that some sort of remedial action is required to get it back on track. If it hasn't strayed, then there's a tick in the box and the auditor moves on.

 

How does an organisation pass an audit?

 

1. Management determines a desired result for an activity.

 

2. Management develops and documents procedures for achieving those results.

 

3. Management informs the affected parties what is involved in the procedures and how to implement them.

 

4. Management observes and records if the procedures result in the achievement of the desired result for the activity.

 

5. Management adjusts the procedures using the result of the analysis of the records.

 

6. The auditor comes in as an independent set of eyes and checks that steps 1 to 5 have been completed.

 

As for Yenn saying "In my last few years at work I found that if I failed the computer based safety questionnaires, I was still given the "whatever" card to let me go onto industrial sites." That is not a fault of the system. That is the fault of the person determining your competency and knowledge. They did you wrong. How would you feel if, having attended a training session, you showed that you did not have the necessary level of competency to complete a task, but were given a "whatever" card and people suffered as a result of your lack of competency?

 

That's what the poor young girl who did not know how to shut down the ride is suffering now.

 

 

[old man emu]

Did you have to sound so stilted, and use so many zombie nouns and unnecessary words? For example, "Quite clearly this inquest has brought into the open the fact that" could have been left out. Instead of "place a great deal of reliance [zombie noun] on", you could have said, "rely [verb] on". You are changing how you audit - which is humble and self-reflective - but the way you announced it made you sound pompous.The sentence you wrote has you doing two things: adopting a style and writing. The sentence only needs to have you doing one thing: writing in a style. The phrase "the fact that" can usually be removed. You can direct the reader to something without telling them that the thing is a thing: one thing, not two.

I was going to get all hot under the collar about these comments, but I have just dropped the article into the Hemmingway editor. It gave the piece a readability of 14 (desired readability: 9) It also said that 16/22 sentences were hard to read. If I have one excuse is that I did do a bit of cut and paste from the online newspaper. When I ran a sample of text from the same reporter through Hemingway editor, it came back with a readability score of 8.

 

Looks like I'll have to do more proofreading and editing with my more serious writings.

 

Thanks for the helpful advice!

 

 

[M61A1]

That's what the poor young girl who did not know how to shut down the ride is suffering now.

Collateral damage to lawyers who are hunting for the deepest pockets.

The whole thing is a stageshow to find someone to blame with enough money to keep lawyers in Porsches.

 

Genuine victims will get the scraps.

 

 

[Yenn]

My failing tests was just because I considered the whole system flawed. I did it to see what happened.

 

On one of my last jobs I was continually hounded by a safety officer, because I had my shirt sleeves rolled up and my buttons undone. When I pointed out to her that workers were dropping with heat exhaustion, due to having to be fully covered up and also wear safety helmets even when working under a concrete slab roof. She couldn't see the sense of it. The day she passed me on the highway, doing probably 100kmh in a 60 school zone and commented to me when I chipped her about it, that it was OK if she didn't get caught, was the day I decided safety experts were stupid box tickers.

 

 

[M61A1]

 

the day I decided safety experts were stupid box tickers

Most of them couldn't see the forest....

 

 

[old man emu]

Yenn, here's what the WH&S Act says about using common sense, or something like it, in relation to safety:

 

Subdivision 2 What is reasonably practicable

 

18 What is “reasonably practicable” in ensuring health and safety

 

In this Act, reasonably practicable, in relation to a duty to ensure health and safety, means that which is, or was at a particular time, reasonably able to be done in relation to ensuring health and safety, taking into account and weighing up all relevant matters including:

 

(a) the likelihood of the hazard or the risk concerned occurring, and

 

(b) the degree of harm that might result from the hazard or the risk, and

 

© what the person concerned knows, or ought reasonably to know, about:

 

(i) the hazard or the risk, and

 

(ii) ways of eliminating or minimising the risk, and

 

(d) the availability and suitability of ways to eliminate or minimise the risk, and

 

(e) after assessing the extent of the risk and the available ways of eliminating or minimising the risk, the cost associated with available ways of eliminating or minimising the risk, including whether the cost is grossly disproportionate to the risk.

 

Later it says,

 

29 Duties of other persons at the workplace

 

A person at a workplace (whether or not the person has another duty under this Part) must:

 

(a) take reasonable care for his or her own health and safety,

 

I'd say that, unless full clothing covering and wearing of safety helmets was the only way to protect a person from damage to health, then go ahead and roll up your sleeves and loosen your collar.

 

Safety Officers have gone overboard in demanding HiViz clothing in a lot of cases. I was working in a building where to only equipment used to move things was trolley jacks or had trucks. It was a requirement to wear HiViz inside the building. The logic was where?

 

 

[kgwilson]

When everyone on a site is wearing HiViz clothing and one person turns up in ordinary clothes, that person stands out like the proverbial.

 

 

[M61A1]

On a certain army training base, hi-viz is required on the flight line. If you don't wear it, your manager will get a phone call from ops reminding them that we can see your employees not wearing their hi-viz.

 

I have seen a stop/go person have to jump out of the way. Wearing orange hi-viz in front of hundreds of orange witch's hats and red signs and waving his red sign, he wasn't very visible until it was almost too late.

 

 

[facthunter]

It's mostly window dressing and bureaucratic overkill./ empire building. Tends to produce contempt instead of respecting and striving for a safety "culture"... Nev

 

 

[old man emu]

When everyone on a site is wearing HiViz clothing and one person turns up in ordinary clothes, that person stands out like the proverbial.

Too true.

 

I have seen a stop/go person have to jump out of the way. Wearing orange hi-viz in front of hundreds of orange witch's hats and red signs and waving his red sign, he wasn't very visible until it was almost too late.

Very believable. Have you ever missed seeing an approaching dark coloured car on a sealed road on a dull day?

 

 

[johnm]

and ..................... road signage on the side of a road warning of danger up the road a bit

 

............. the road signs themselves restricting the road ................ and being a danger themselves

 

 

[Ron5335]

Very believable. Have you ever missed seeing an approaching dark coloured car on a sealed road on a dull day?

And on that note, How many times do you flash a car on dusk in an attempt to alert him to turn his lights on because your trying to tell him you can't see him, but obviously you did see him !!!

 

Hi-Vis really took hold on the railways, but when you think about it, unless your standing between the tracks there is no way a train can get you, but then if your on a platform and some crazy person goes off, you would think that the person in Hi vis would likely be the target.

 

 

[winsor68]

I disagree with Yenn that it is all a matter of ticking boxes and nobody is supposed to fail".There is no pass or fail. If people, especially auditors, understand its purpose then the effect of an audit is to point out if an organisation has followed or strayed from its intended course of action. If it has strayed, then the audit shows that fact and that some sort of remedial action is required to get it back on track. If it hasn't strayed, then there's a tick in the box and the auditor moves on.

 

How does an organisation pass an audit?

 

1. Management determines a desired result for an activity.

 

2. Management develops and documents procedures for achieving those results.

 

3. Management informs the affected parties what is involved in the procedures and how to implement them.

 

4. Management observes and records if the procedures result in the achievement of the desired result for the activity.

 

5. Management adjusts the procedures using the result of the analysis of the records.

 

6. The auditor comes in as an independent set of eyes and checks that steps 1 to 5 have been completed.

 

As for Yenn saying "In my last few years at work I found that if I failed the computer based safety questionnaires, I was still given the "whatever" card to let me go onto industrial sites." That is not a fault of the system. That is the fault of the person determining your competency and knowledge. They did you wrong. How would you feel if, having attended a training session, you showed that you did not have the necessary level of competency to complete a task, but were given a "whatever" card and people suffered as a result of your lack of competency?

 

That's what the poor young girl who did not know how to shut down the ride is suffering now.

What if management only ensures the organisation will pass leading up to and during the time when the audit is being performed?

 

 

[facthunter]

The best audit's would be without pre notification. You want to audit what "Normally" happens. How some fly on a check isn't always the way they fly when on their own. Same as a car driver on test. Hardly likely to speed, or cross double lines, are they? Nev

 

 

[M61A1]

The issue would appear to me to be that the audit just ensures compliance, it doesn't ensure that the methods being complied with actually work.

 

As an aside.....There was a "Flash Safety Alert" on our safety board yesterday. Apparently some genius had removed the nut from a bolt and as it was still tight so they attempted to pull it out with pointy nose pliers (incorrect tool), slipped and stabbed themselves in the eyelid.

 

The safety genius fix.....wear ppe, and have a meeting about using ppe, not one word about the "tradesman" using his tools like a three year old.

 

 

[Yenn]

Many years ago I knocked back a job, advertised as safety inspector, in the Northern Territory. I got to the last 3 or 4 in the running, before they told me it would be basicly Chief Inspector of machinery, scaffolding etc for the whole territory. Am I glad I pulled out of that one, I would have ended up smothered with paperwork.

 

 

[old man emu]

The majority of businesses overlook, or are ignorant of, the fact that planning a system for safety (or management or environmental risk) in the workplace follows the same procedure:

 

====> [Express the organisation's policy and goals the system will bring about]

 

====> [Develop plans to reach the goals]

 

====> [implement the plans]

 

====> [Monitor the effectiveness of the plans]

 

====> [Review and modify plans in light of their effectiveness]

 

The methodology for this procedure is given in publications from the organisation, Standards Australia.

 

1. AS/NZS ISO 9001 - Quality Management Systems - Requirements

 

2. AS/NZS 4801 - Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems (now ISO 45001)

 

3. AS/NZS 9001 - Environmental Management Systems

 

From what I have seen, very few who are responsible for developing plans for ensuring the smooth running of business activities have any knowledge of these standards (CASA included).

 

Anyway, here is a short clip that helps explain what an audit is.

 

 

 

[winsor68]

Multiply it by 100 people each of them having an input in to the operation..and you have a colossal train wreck. It's why the world has gone to pot. Not young people. Individuals of all ages who think their little bit doesn't matter.

 

 

[APenNameAndThatA]

"There is a Coronial Inquest being conducted at the moment in Queensland into the deaths of four people on a thrill ride at the DreamWorld theme park in 2016."

 

"at the moment" and "There is" do not provide any information. This would have been just as informative: "A Coronial Inquest is being conducted in Queensland into the deaths of four people on a thrill ride at the DreamWorld theme park in 2016". IMHO, the closer "Coronial Inquest" is to the start of the letter, the more punch the letter will have.

 

I do not expect any of you to care, but the base of the sentence is "A Coronial Inquest is being conducted" - pretty much a subject, verb and object. There are five unbound modifiers:

 

in Queensland

 

into the deaths of four people

 

on a thrill ride

 

at the Dreamworld theme park

 

in 2016.

 

Putting all the modifiers at the end of the sentence is good. If "Queensland" was at the start, the sentence would lose impact. If "2016" was earlier in the sentence, it would make it seem as though the inquest was in 2016. (The first two modifiers are about the Inquest. The last three modifiers are about the deaths. The last three modifiers helped move the sentence along, and not just end with just a description of the Inquest itself. ATM l am listening to lectures about unbound modifiers, you see.)

 

If you said "There is a Coronial Inquest in Queensland into the deaths of four people on a thrill ride at the Dreamworld theme park in 2016", then you save "being conducted": an inquest cannot exist if it is not being conducted. But saying that would add two different words, the sentence would lose the energy of "being conducted", and the reader might be left wondering what happened to the dramatic action (verb) that they were expecting. To me, the words "being conducted" make me imagine that I am the subject of the inquest, and motivate me to read the rest of the message. I don't know if commas should separate the modifiers.

 

It was easy for me to pick holes in the first sentence of the message, but a closer look showed lots of good things about it. I bet there were more that I did not spot. My own belief is that carefully auditing your writing will help you best serve your clients and yourself. Thank you for reading!

 

 

[fly_tornado]

journos and sub editors have to pad out their work

 

 

[pmccarthy]

So why do so many people start their sentences with “So”? It is a pandemic.

 

 

[old man emu]

Sew they can pull a thread.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Many years ago I knocked back a job, advertised as safety inspector, in the Northern Territory. I got to the last 3 or 4 in the running, before they told me it would be basicly Chief Inspector of machinery, scaffolding etc for the whole territory. Am I glad I pulled out of that one, I would have ended up smothered with paperwork.

You would also have been out of a job within a year or so; even the best inspectors had the problem of being responsible for checking every rope, pulley, shackle, crane, etc against the worst kind of resistance where businesses would hide weaknesses, take the guards off the saws as the inspector walked out the door, still claiming they had a ticket when the worker was injured.

here was a huge sigh of relief when the States and Territories closed down their weights, measures and safety departments around 1984 and out of the safety management business making it self management. To this day there are people who don't understand they are responsible, totally responsible for ensuring no one is injured by anything under their control.

 

Effectively, where you could see the flaw in the old system of never being able to reach every villain, today the villains just march themselves out of business.

 

 

[old man emu]

To this day there are people who don't understand they are responsible, totally responsible for ensuring no one is injured by anything under their control.

And that, my friends, is the reason for my writing that warning message to my clients. Try this next Monday, If you are still numbered amongst the working masses. Contact your superior and ask how the following is done in your workplace:

 

Division 4 Duty of officers, workers and other persons

 

27 Duty of officers

 

(1) If a person conducting a business or undertaking has a duty or obligation under this Act, an officer of the person conducting the business or undertaking must exercise due diligence to ensure that the person conducting the business or undertaking complies with that duty or obligation.

 

(5) In this section, due diligence includes taking reasonable steps:

 

(e) to ensure that the person conducting the business or undertaking has, and implements, processes for complying with any duty or obligation of the person conducting the business or undertaking under this Act, and Example. For the purposes of paragraph (e), the duties or obligations under this Act of a person conducting a business or undertaking may include:

 

• reporting notifiable incidents,

 

• consulting with workers,

 

• ensuring compliance with notices issued under this Act,

 

• ensuring the provision of training and instruction to workers about work health and safety,

 

• ensuring that health and safety representatives receive their entitlements to training.

 

Then watch them squirm.