Collingwood farmer Deborah Rhodes is examining the safety climate in dairy sheds for her Master of Health Research thesis through the Victoria University School of Health.
Collingwood farmer Deborah Rhodes is examining the safety climate in dairy sheds for her Master of Health Research thesis through the Victoria University School of Health.
Safety climate looks at the perceived value placed on safety in an organisation, and can be used as a predictor of safety issues and as a catalyst for change.
As part of her research she is sending out a national survey, with the help of DairyNZ and Federated Farmers, to dairy workers and their employers. She hoped the research would contribute to new approaches in managing the work in dairy sheds.
“It’s not really looking at hazards, but mapping distinctions between what employees think and what managers think,” she said. “I’m hypothesising there is a gap between their perceptions.
Rhodes said such a survey had not been done in New Zealand before, and it had attracted international interest.
Rhodes was a registered nurse before she and her husband became dairy farmers in 2010.
Her interest in workplace safety evolved from her own experience in the industry and the ongoing harm from dairy work accidents that had not improved in recent years.
Hazards in dairy sheds included kicks from cows, falls, chemicals, and scalding water.
Rhodes said the survey results would contribute to international benchmarking data being collected by the National Research Centre for the Working Environment in Denmark. At present, there is no New Zealand data held by the centre.
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