> COVID-19 transition plans must cover WHS and critical functions; > ACT seeks to boost workers' mental health in pandemic; and > NSW introduces Bill for new work injury dispute system.
Keeping communications upbeat, holding virtual team meetings and reminding workers their EAPs are there if they need them, are key strategies for overcoming the harmful social isolation workers could experience working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, a safety and injury management expert says.
With the COVID-19 pandemic forcing social distancing measures and many workers to work from home, often at very short notice, employers must remember they have a duty to ensure working environments in homes and elsewhere are healthy and safe, a senior safety lawyer says in this Q&A with OHS Alert.
A manager's refusal to relocate a worker after she suffered a miscarriage, so she wouldn't be exposed to discussions on pregnancy in the workplace, did not cause a compensable psychological injury, a commission president has confirmed.
The adjustments an employer made for a worker recently diagnosed with diabetes have helped defeat his claim that he was unfairly dismissed and discriminated against because his performance suffered from the health condition.
Employers have a legal duty to identify and manage reasonably foreseeable workplace psychological hazards, and protect workers from unsafely high work demands and bullying, a SafeWork NSW director told a forum on mental health in the legal industry today.
An employer is liable for a worker's psychological injury sustained after a distressing meeting on new stringent overtime allocation policies, a tribunal has found.
The vast majority of workers with disabilities, health conditions or injuries are motivated to retain, secure or return to suitable employment, but necessary work accommodations are rare, and outcomes are stymied by stigma and discrimination, according to a major report on empowering workers.
Father fatigue is a major unspoken workplace safety issue, with new fathers being 36 per cent more likely to have an accident at work, an organisational psychologist has warned.
