The government exercises control over all areas of society, including this, which is relevant for workers’ occupational safety. An extensive reporting system of statistics on occupational injuries provided by organizations is used to supervise and enact the applicable regulations. Burke (2019) notes that focusing on occupational safety provides significant economic benefits to both companies and governments. However, this approach often leads to negative effects and forced manipulation of statistics, which causes the ineffectiveness of industrial safety policy and reduces productivity. At the same time, all kinds of bureaucratic difficulties complicate the life of employers and managers. Therefore, this essay examines two chapters from the book “The safety anarchist” (2018) by Sidney Dekker. The work is devoted to the discussion and criticism of existing measures and the state standards based on which occupational safety control is now carried out. The essay also analyzes the importance of the various points of view presented in the material in the context of Australian safety professional working.
Bureaucracy exists in all spheres of government, as well as in the area of occupational safety and health. Dekker states in chapter 4 of his book that “bureaucracies tend to grow on themselves” (Dekker, 2018, p. 67). The author provides several examples of how different workplace standards and regulations either impose more unnecessary responsibilities on workers or cause a false sense of safety. The figures are also given for the rapid increase in the number of occupational safety specialists over the past five years and since the 90s of the last century (Dekker, 2018). Such statistical dynamics testify to the tightening of the rules for ensuring health safety, leading to the expected expansion of bureaucratic tools. Provan, Dekker, and Rae (2017, p. 6) mention that “organizations that previously were required only to implement action/state requirements now require expertise to interpret and translate legislation into company actions that demonstrate compliance.” Thus, companies are now unable to cope with health safety measures independently; they are forced to hire specialists and develop a complex bureaucratic process.
The expansion of various standards and regulations inevitably leads to a more complex regulation process. As Dekker (2018, p. 58) notes, current workplace safety circumstances lead to the emergence of “bureaucratic lunacies,” consisting of absurd checklists, an increase in the number of responsibilities, and false precautions. For instance, Varghese et al. (2020, p. 4) report that “heat exposure in the workplace (both high temperatures and heatwaves) is known to cause adverse health effects including physical injury and illness.” However, Dekker (2018) emphasizes that the introduction of long sleeves and hard hats that protect against heat often results in heatstroke. Thus, strict safety rules sometimes do not correspond with reality, causing unexpected harmful effects.
More complex regulations and bureaucracy require more people responsible for their execution. Such conditions lead to the fact that safety management made organizations increasingly bureaucratic (Provan, Dekker, and Rae, 2017). Therefore, Dekker (2018) argues that bureaucracy itself does not aim to make people’s life more difficult; nevertheless, it certainly complicates all work processes. Thus, safety regulations and management are the results of subtle consequences that worsen the performance of organizations.
Chapter 5 focuses on their role in ensuring safety in the workplace, in particular, their relationship to bureaucratic complexity. The existence of different rules also implies measures of their implementation to “ensure that risks arising from known hazards are properly controlled” (Potter et al., 2019, p. 11). Furthermore, regulation based on data reports provides the basis for the formation of policies for occupational safety and health protection of workers (Potter et al., 2017). However, Dekker (2018) argues that numbers can become a target, causing bureaucratic manipulations and falsifications, leading to inaccurate statistics and precautions. Moreover, the author discusses how useless statistics are for predicting because injuries are often unpredictable events (Dekker, 2018). Thus, both chapters emphasize the author’s attitude towards bureaucratic measures that support workers’ health policies. On the one hand, they lead to a more complex business environment for organizations and the need to outsource or hire additional staff. On the other hand, they are often the reason for the disruption of regulations and manipulation of numbers, which also negatively affect the workflow and the results of the implementation of measures.
For the most part, Dekker’s criticism of existing policies, however, has no bearing on existing rules. Occupational health and safety GRI Standards oblige organizations to report all work-related injuries (GRI Standards, 2018). The regulation includes various classifications of injuries, reports on recovery times and performance losses incurred, and calculations of multiple metrics based on data. Thus, the collection of statistics on occupational injuries is presented as a basis for forecasting and taking measures to ensure workers’ safety in the workplace. The government approach to universal standardization is entirely different from Dekker’s view. The standards prescribe the recording and reporting of all work-related injuries indicators as poor statistics “can have a detrimental impact on the lives and livelihoods of individuals and their families” (O’Neill and Wolfe, 2017, p. 3). At the same time, Dekker tends to consider such measures as overcomplicated and, in some instances, even negatively affecting. Thus, the authorities’ policy is for the constant collection of data, the introduction of special management, while Dekker disputes the need for such regulations.
The importance of a statistically sound approach stems from the need for formal structures to monitor working conditions. However, according to research, on average, each injury recorded in the national system is attributed to at least two reported incidents, while, at least, four workers were affected (Probst, Bettac, and Austin, 2019, p. 17). Thus, statistical data often do not correspond to reality; based on them, it is impossible to make accurate forecasts and form a picture of workers’ occupational safety. Regulations require additional documentation, separate procedures, and roles, which, however, do not contribute to an increase in the occupational safety level (Rae et al., 2018). Thus, in support of Dekker’s assumptions, the question arises of the extent to which safety management and bureaucracy affect productivity and safety at work.
Based on the readings reviewed, one can reason about how important the views presented in them are for occupational safety in the context of modern Australia. The standards indicate that Australian professional safety policy relies heavily on statistics collection, prognosis, and injury prevention. However, this approach can harm the productivity of organizations. The manipulation of figures reported to the authorities often prevents an accurate picture of the current situation. Simultaneously, the growing bureaucracy is forcing many companies to hire safety managers, increasing the responsibilities of employees the number of people involved. Thus, this view creates additional difficulties for doing business, which also directly affects workers. Dekker’s perspective in the present context can provide a forward-looking overview of necessary changes and suggestions for improving existing measures. Despite criticism of government policies, control and surveillance are required, but the right tools are not always used to implement them.
Reference List
Burke, R. (2019) ‘Increasing occupational health and safety in workplaces: why it matters’, in Burke, R. and Richardsen, A. (eds.) Increasing occupational health and safety in workplaces: individual, work and organizational factors. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 2-30.
Dekker, S. (2018) The safety anarchist: relying on human expertise and innovation, reducing bureaucracy and compliance. London: Routledge.
GRI Standards. (2018) GRI 403: occupational health and safety. Amsterdam: GRI Standards.
O’Neill, S. and Wolfe, K. (2017) Measuring and reporting on work health & safety. Canberra: Safe Work Australia.
Potter, R. et al. (2017) ‘Assessing a national work health and safety policy intervention using the psychosocial safety climate framework’, Safety Science, 100, pp. 91-102.
Potter, R. et al. (2019) ‘Analytical review of the Australian policy context for work-related psychological health and psychosocial risks’, Safety Science, 111, pp. 37-48.
Probst, T. M., Bettac, E. L. and Austin, C. (2019. ‘Accident underreporting in the workplace’, in Burke, R. and Richardsen, A. (eds.) Increasing occupational health and safety in workplaces: individual, work and organizational factors. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 30-47.
Provan, D. J., Dekker, S. and Rae, A. J. (2017) ‘Bureaucracy, influence and beliefs: a literature review of the factors shaping the role of a safety professional’, Safety Science, 98, pp. 98-112.
Rae, A. J. et al. (2018) ‘Safety clutter: the accumulation and persistence of ‘safety’ work that does not contribute to operational safety’, Policy and Practice in Health and Safety, 16(2), pp. 194-211.
Varghese, B. M. et al. (2020) ‘Determinants of heat-related injuries in Australian workplaces: perceptions of health and safety professionals’, Silence of the Total Environment, 718, pp. 1-45.