Season 06 Episode 12: It's going SWM'ingly

The podcasters, Trajce, Alan, and Sara, discuss the conventions of establishing Safe Work Method Statements (SWMS). Alan likens SWMS to mythology, rigorously enforced from powers that be, though he believes that the legal doctrine supporting them is unclear. Alan asks, “Do they really work?”

Trajce shares his research on breaches of work health and safety law, including fatal events. “In these cases,” he reveals, “90% of the defendants presented a SWMS – 517 cases, in fact.” In these cases, the SWMS were either not followed, not well considered or constructed, or work simply changed and the workers were confronted by unexpected events. “These ‘unexpected events’ are customary,” remarks Sara, “not unusual.” “To sink or swim?” she asks. Trajce uses the phrase, “The Holy Grail of SWMS.” They continue this thread of debate, wondering if a document is well prepared, have organisations helped transfer that embedded knowledge into the minds and operations of people who do the work, while establishing systems to continue to learn from the many work variations that arise in daily routines.

Sara leverages this debate to bolster support for the WhyWork Workshop build-your-own sponsored podcast and interactive workshops. These workshops are designed for industry and organisations wishing to dive into resilience engineering, reliability thinking, and contingency planning, using case law and work re-design strategies.