By Chally Kacelnik
Every year, we take a look at Safe Work Australia’s Key Work Health and Safety Statistics. We use these in our safety programming, including leadership development programs. Any measure of serious injuries, fatalities, and illnesses above zero at work is of course too much. Intellectually, we all know the impact is widespread and that psychological workers compensation claims in particular are increasing. However, when tragedy strikes, it’s easy to compartmentalise it and move on.
Think about how many times you’ve heard that one of the most significant impacts of a diagnosis, or of losing a loved one, was social: most people disappeared or didn’t know what to say. Prima facie, that’s odd: it’s almost never going to be the first time that someone encounters a serious event, and of course they know the correct thing to do. But there’s something about human nature, or perhaps the way we’re socialised, that tells people to shrink back. As a result, as a society, we don’t learn the lessons of the past – we just treat everything as isolated incidents and someone else’s problem.
Sometimes, it’s your problem. And when it comes to safety at work, if we’re not learning these lessons from our own workplaces and elsewhere, we are not treating safety as a real and imminent concern.
This is a message I’m getting from the Safe Work Australia fatality statistics. Here’s an extract, emphasis mine:
In 2022, there were 195 worker fatalities due to traumatic injuries sustained in the course of a work‑related activity. Overall, the number and rate of fatalities has been trending downward since 2007, however it has been relatively static over the recent years.
Safe Work Australia: Key Work Health and Safety Statistics Australia, 2023
Over the past 5 years (2018 to 2022), the average fatality rate was 1.4 fatalities per 100,000 workers and an average of 180 workers died per year.
There has been an increase in the number and rate of fatalities since the previous year (13% increase from 172 fatalities in 2021; 8% increase from 1.3 fatalities per 100,000 workers in 2021).
The lowest recorded fatality rate of 1.1 fatalities per 100,000 workers was recorded in 2018.
There has been a real and concerted effort to drive down fatalities. Indeed, there has been a 30% decrease in the Australian worker fatality rate since 2012. A recent stagnation, even increase, is a warning to not rest on our laurels. With worker deaths, not to mention injuries and illnesses, not as rampant as they once were, it is easy to not focus on safety as a felt, urgent matter. Never let it be a tick box exercise. Make it your problem, every day.
At LKS Quaero, we have a real impact on organisational safety. For more information, visit us at lksquaero.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook.
