WARNING: A fatality and suicide are discussed in this episode.
“We’re all human,” Alan explains, “even during our methane messaging” as he details the news story of U.S. Biden administration’s climate envoy, John Kerry, delivering a passionate speech on climate change in the most awkward exchange that was captured on film. The idea of ‘messaging’ led to the trio’s, Alan, Trajce, and Sara’s, expansion on the WhyWork Podcast’s vocabulary to consider words beginning with the letter ‘M’.
After Alan introduces topics on mining, Sara recalls her visit to the Mackay Resources Center of Excellence (RCOE) with Karen Sanders of Real Serious Games (RSG) and the amazing work that they do for the physical model of an underground mine at the RCOE and the simulated models and digital twin environments established in extended reality, like with RSG. Alan suggests another case of interest to inspectors and others, the WorkSafe VIC charge against the Victorian Building Authority when an inspector was issued a redundancy. It was alleged that this redundancy contributed to the inspector’s anguish and the inspector committed suicide. Alan asks about a more graceful transition plan for loyal and long-term employees and Sara describes ‘lifecycle ergonomics’ coupled with internal customer journey mapping as a corollary to customer journey mapping when considering work systems and ‘multi-player’ user experiences. She uses a yoga analogy to consider the worker transition at employment departure because “the exit part is the part that we usually get wrong,” she explains. Trajce agrees and contends that people just want to feel valued, “Love is the message, and the message is love,” he says, from ‘The Message is Love’ song by Arthur Baker.
In this episode, Sara reflects on the applications of the NSW Psychosocial Hazard Work Re-Design Tool and takes her hat off to her colleague, Dr Carlo Caponecchia, in his work on coordinating these guides and international standards on psychosocial hazards.