TMS Consultant Psychologist, Heather Ikin has been invited to present at the upcoming Queensland Mining Industry Health and Safety Conference taking place 17-20 August at the Townsville Entertainment and Convention Centre.
With the theme of “Improving Health and Safety in Challenging Times” the conference will examine current safety challenges faced by the mining industry including:
“The ‘challenges’ we allude to include the pressures on site resources, the current downsizing in some areas of the industry, and being conscious of those distractions that take emphasis away from the business purpose of producing product. Equally, we don’t want to lose focus on workplace safety and health or have it undermined in any way because of these concerns. Our aim is that delegates should come away from the conference armed with practical advice on improving safety and health that takes into account these challenges.”
Heather will present ‘Optimising Safety Performance with the Brain in Mind’. Please see below for the abstract for this presentation.
ABSTRACT:
The Mining Industry maintains a strong focus on health and safety systems and initiatives, and yet despite this fact, there have recently been a number of fatalities in Mining in Australia. In order to combat this, employees, contractors, supervisors, executives and mining operators need to work together to maintain a focus on identifying and managing the risks inherent in mining work environments.
Most organisations have sound risk management practices in place, so why aren’t they working as effectively as they should?
The fields of neuroscience and cognitive psychology can better help us to understand the limitations of human performance, and the need to design safety systems accordingly. Critical concepts to consider include how we attend to stimuli in the work environment, conscious processing capacity, decision-making accuracy, and information storage and retrieval.
This paper considers the brain science behind risk awareness, perception and attention, providing insights into how the brain works in relation to safety. Practical suggestions for making improvements to safety management systems to accommodate human performance, as well as lessons from the field of psychology on influencing safe behaviour at work will be discussed.
TMS Consulting will also be showcasing our Health, Safety and Wellbeing services in the trade area. Please come say hello to our safety consultants in booth 7.
