Research

Phil Wadick has been involved in a number of empirical research projects, and he is continuously engaged in a style of personal research embodied in his commitment to reflective practice.

Current Research

Phil is currently studying for a PhD through Monash University. He is researching OHS training and the enablers and barriers to implementing at work any health and safety improvements they learnt in the training. If you would like to be involved in this research, Phil would love to hear from you; he is looking for research participants who can be anybody with OHS experiences – you could have attended OHS training and then gone back to your workplace and made efforts (successful or unsuccessful) to implement your new ideas; you could have attended OHS training and thought that it was a waste of time; you could be a trainer who tries to make the training the best that it can be, or you could be a trainer that wants to express their opinion on OHS training; you could be an employer, an organisation or a manager/supervisor who struggles with OHS, or who has some great best practice examples to share, in regards to training or OHS implementation. PLEASE CONTACT US if you want to be involved.

This is a qualitative research project, and my field is Education. Hence, I am looking to increase understanding of how to facilitate ohs learning that translates into safer workplaces. The types of questions that I will be asking are semi-structured and open ended. The questions outlined below are merely indicative, and nowhere near exhaustive. I invite anyone who is involved with ohs, either as a trainer, trainee, employer, or member of a government organisation, to become involved in this research. You can contact me by email: pjwad1@student.monash.edu.

Brief Outline Of Phd Research

My main research questions are: What is the role of OHS training in making workplaces safer? What are the enablers of good OHS practice at work? What are the barriers to implementing good OHS practices at work? Some sub questions are: How does the OHS trainer ensure that their course is effective? How does the trainer know that the course is effective? What does good ohs training look like? What barriers to safe working do the trainees face once they return to the workplace after the training? What sorts of things enable the implementation of practices learnt at training, and how do they achieve this? , and, how do the trainees navigate and negotiate these barriers and enablers?

By OHS training, I mean any type of training designed to give people the knowledge skills and attitudes to improve the safety performance of their workplace. This could mean any or all of the following: their own safe behaviours, influencing the safe behaviours of others at the workplace, influencing decisions made by management about health and safety, reporting and follow up of incidents (near misses and actual hits), and participation in risk assessments and ohs consultation at work. In the final part of this paper, I am inviting anyone who is interested in contributing their ideas to this research to contact me on the details provided. I would love to either interview you or have you answer some survey questions, or generally provide input from your experiences. You may be an OHS trainer, have participated in OHS training, or somehow have experience of OHS.

The types of questions that I may be asking trainers, course participants, managers, employers and supervisors are:

For trainers

How do you, as a trainer, ensure effective ohs training?
What competencies does a good trainer possess? What is an ineffective trainer?
How do you know if your training is effective?
How do you deal with aggressive, or negative behaviours and/or attitudes of students?
How do you know the ideal balance between the content of what you teach and the process you use to teach it?

For ohs course participants

Did you learn anything from the training? If so, what was it? What helped you learn it?
Did or do you use anything that you learned from the training? How did/does this work?
What sorts of things made implementing these at work easier and effective? Why? How?
What sorts of things made implementing these at work difficult? Why? How?
Can you describe what it was like for you before, during and after the training (back at the workplace)?
What recommendations would you make that would improve the effectiveness of ohs training?

For employers, managers or supervisors

Was the training that your employees attended effective at helping to create a safer workplace?
What things would help the training be more effective? Why? Examples?
Can you describe how you perceived the competencies gained by attending the training?
What barriers do you see to improving health and safety at work? Why? Explain? Describe.
What support do the new trainees need when they return to work?
What support do you need to help improve the effectiveness of the training that your employees attended? How do you envisage this will happen?

Get involved, share your stories. It is through research that we can improve safety, whether it is the quality or type of training, management commitment to OHS, or to create good safety cultures of risk aware workers. Email me to become part of this progress to a safer, fairer and more equitable world.