The minority report: Hazard reporting in an Australian University

Understanding what influences reporting is critical to underpinning the knowledge base around reporting behaviour and assisting in developing effective strategies to increase reporting levels within an organisation. Universities should investigate reporting behaviour in their own organisation and investigate why differences exist between different job profiles.

The aim of this study was to investigate hazard reporting in an Australian University and to assess what factors (employment type, level of safety responsibility and prior injury) influence reporting behaviour.

A total of 256 university employees and postgraduate students completed a survey on their hazard reporting.

The study indicated that demographic variables such as department type, role in the organisation, level of safety activity in role, and prior injury effected the reporting of hazards. Issues for non-reporting were also found to support findings in other studies. A unique finding was that while teaching-focused academics were not more likely to have been injured at work they were more likely to have reported a hazard, while researchers were less likely to report despite not being more or less likely to have received an injury.

Although this study indicates there are differences in an organisations hazard reporting based on demographics and prior injury occurrence further research is required to evaluate the impact across other organisations and sectors.