The Safety Dept.

15/04/2026

A routine day. A known risk. A preventable outcome.

In 2019, a worker in New South Wales was working around moving plant as part of his normal duties.

There was no effective separation between the worker and the machinery.

In a moment, he was struck and killed.

The company was later prosecuted in 2022.

What the court made clear was this:
“The risk was foreseeable and the means of addressing it were available.”

This is where a lot of businesses get caught out.

Because with hazards like moving plant, the expectation isn’t that people will always be careful.

It’s that the system prevents them getting hurt.

If you’ve got machinery in your business, ask yourself:
Can someone access a dangerous area?

Because if they can, the risk isn’t controlled.

14/04/2026

From the a home office to Amazon #1 📚

Safety shouldn’t be complicated — but it does need to work in real life.

safetysystems businessowners leadership amazonbooks smallbusiness workhealthsafety

14/04/2026

A forklift. A worker. A moment that changed everything.

This is one of the most common risks I see across workplaces and it’s still causing serious incidents.

The controls are well known.
The risk is predictable.

The real question is:
Are you actually controlling it in your workplace?

14/04/2026

A worker went to work at a NSW brick plant… and didn’t make it home.

In 2020, a 45-year-old worker was caught in moving machinery at an Austral Bricks site and suffered fatal injuries.

The company was later prosecuted and fined over $1 million.

This wasn’t a rare or unpredictable risk.
Working around moving plant is one of the most well understood hazards in safety.

But there weren’t adequate controls in place to physically prevent access to the danger zone.

And that’s what the court focused on.

For business owners, this is where the real exposure sits.

It’s not about what people are told.
It’s about what actually stops the hazard.

If you’ve got machinery in your business, ask yourself:
Can someone access a dangerous area, even briefly?

Because if they can, the risk isn’t controlled.

13/04/2026

Not going to lie… SJ is really enjoying creating this AI version of her while she’s still in her PJs 😅

But the message is serious most businesses think they’ve “got safety covered” when really it’s just paperwork.

If your system isn’t working in real life, it’s not protecting you.

13/04/2026

Psychological safety isn’t just a “nice to have” anymore it’s a legal obligation.

This High Court case (Kozarov v State of Victoria) makes it clear:
If a risk to mental health is foreseeable and you don’t act early, you can be in breach of your WHS duties.

For small businesses, this is where a lot of gaps sit.

It’s not about having policies.
It’s about what you actually do when the risk is there.

09/04/2026

Grateful to share that SJs book, A Practical Guide to Psychosocial Risk, is now a #1 Best Seller on Amazon in Business Risk Management.

Thank you to everyone who has supported, purchased, and shared the book. The response has been both humbling and encouraging.

This work was developed to provide practical, evidence-based guidance on managing psychosocial risks in Australian workplaces. It’s rewarding to see it resonating with so many professionals committed to improving workplace health and safety.

If you haven’t seen it yet, you can find it here:
https://amzn.asia/d/05MXf4E2

We appreciate the continued support.

A Practical Guide to Psychosocial Risk: Managing People, Pressure and Workplace Behaviour

23/03/2026

Proud moment.

A Practical Guide to Psychosocial Risk is now ranked #1 on Amazon in both Risk Management and Corporate Governance.

This book was written to provide practical, real-world guidance for managing psychosocial risks and building safer, healthier workplaces. Seeing it resonate at this level is incredibly meaningful.

Thank you to everyone who has supported, shared, and implemented the work.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GTDCGPRX?ref=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cso_cp_mwn_dp_D1RRK6RMMSFKT8MGG5Y0&ref_=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cso_cp_mwn_dp_D1RRK6RMMSFKT8MGG5Y0&social_share=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cso_cp_mwn_dp_D1RRK6RMMSFKT8MGG5Y0&bestFormat=true

13/03/2026

For the past few years, one question has come up more than any other when we are working with clients.

“What do we actually do about psychosocial risk?”

Business owners and managers are hearing more about it than ever before. Regulators are talking about it. Codes of practice now reference it. Workers’ compensation claims linked to psychological injury are increasing.

But most leaders are not asking the question because they want another policy.

They are asking because they are trying to work out how to run their businesses.

- Can you still performance manage someone?
- Can you still have hard conversations with staff?
- How do you manage difficult behaviour without someone immediately saying they are being bullied?
- What happens when someone in the workplace is neurodivergent and communication styles are different?
- And what exactly do the new psychosocial expectations mean in practice?

These are real questions leaders are navigating every day.

After hearing these same questions again and again, SJ decided to write a book about it from an Australian angle.

Her new book, Safety Decoded Australia: A Practical Guide to Psychosocial Risk, breaks down what psychosocial risk actually means in workplaces and how leaders can manage people, pressure and workplace behaviour without the legal confusion.

It is written for business owners, managers and supervisors who want practical guidance, not theory.

Because managing people has always been part of leadership. Understanding how to do it well in today’s environment is what matters.

https://amzn.asia/d/06F0TaVK

A Practical Guide to Psychosocial Risk: Managing People, Pressure and Workplace Behaviour

05/03/2026

What began 10 years ago…a small milestone today....

SJ's author copies of my new book Tech Tech Boom have arrived.

This book explores how rapid technological change is reshaping work, safety, and psychological risk in modern organisations. It looks at the long arc of industrial transformation, from steam power through to artificial intelligence, and examines how risk rarely disappears when technology advances. Instead, it relocates.

After more than two decades working in safety, SJ wanted to explore a question that keeps appearing across industries: how do we manage the human consequences of technological acceleration?

The book introduces concepts such as Human Residual Risk and Adaptive Risk Intelligence and examines how organisations can govern innovation without eroding human sustainability.

We have a number of author copies available. If you would like one posted to you, comment 'Book' below and we will arrange to send you a copy.

https://lnkd.in/gac6geXC

02/03/2026

Sarah-Jane’s new book “Tech Tech Boom: Psychosocial Sustainability in the Age of Intelligent Machines” is now available:

https://amzn.asia/d/0h91LGQf

SJ began writing this more than ten years ago, before AI was embedded in everyday organisational decision making and before psychosocial risk had entered most regulatory language. Even then, the structural pattern was visible: technology accelerates, authority migrates, and governance struggles to keep pace.

Recent digital safety reforms in NSW reflect something much larger than a state based regulatory update. Around the world, lawmakers are responding to harms emerging from algorithmic systems, platform governance, and AI enabled environments. Policy is beginning to catch up with acceleration.

The central argument of Tech Tech Boom is straightforward: risk does not disappear under automation. It relocates. Authority moves into systems. Accountability remains human. Cognitive load, ambiguity, decisional opacity and psychosocial strain intensify quietly before governance frameworks fully adapt.

The NSW reforms are one example of a broader global shift toward transparency, contestability and harm prevention in digital environments. Similar themes are visible in EU AI regulation, workplace psychosocial legislation, and platform accountability debates internationally.

This book examines:

- The Psychological Residual, how exposure shifts as automation advances
- Authority & accountability asymmetry in AI enabled systems
- Escalation dynamics and secondary psychological injury
- A staged governance maturity model for Adaptive Risk Intelligence

For leaders, boards, safety professionals, regulators and policy makers, the question is no longer whether digital governance must evolve. It is whether reform will precede fracture or follow it.

We welcome discussion from those working at the intersection of technology, risk and governance.

Tech Tech Boom: Psychosocial Sustainability in the Age of Intelligent Machines

23/11/2021

Riskology turned TEN this month; I cannot believe it's been a decade since I flew up to QLD for a day for my first client project, never did I expect that flight would be one of hundreds that my business would take me on. I distinctly remember deciding to leave the cubicle in my early 30's, hoping it would work out, but certainly not imagining it would take off the way it did.

Here I am ten years later, having not only gotten an extremely loyal client base, but so many other bucket list achievements have been ticked off too.

I launched an awards event which is up to it's 6th year and the most well known safety awards event in the country, chaired the start up of the Australian Safety Awards, launched the Hunter branch of the Safety Institute of Australia, and the NSW Regional Safety Conference and Expo, spoken and MC'd at hundreds of events, and spoke overseas as the only female speaker at the Middle Eastern Conference for Safety Engineers. I also launched the sister businesses One Touch Contracting, and 45001 Systems.

I'm most proud of my team over the years, current and past that have supported my vision and we were able to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars of complimentary consulting to small regional businesses over the years, with the mantra of happiness - happiness for the team and happiness for our clients.

I want to say a HUUUGE thank you for your support, your support of the events, your recommendations and referrals and everything else you've done for me since Riskology launched ten years ago. I honestly couldn't have done it without you all.

Here's to another ten. 😉

SJ