WhyWork Podcast

The WhyWork Podcast is an organisational strategy session and legal dissection of workplace events that are laced with humour. Your bloggers, Alan, Trajce, and Sara, explore the contemporary and uncomfortable realities of work and the boundaries that are tested. Alan and Trajce dismantle case law and Sara pushes all to consider how to redesign the world of work so that business objectives are realised and that people thrive. Good stories are told. The WhyWork team throws shade on some of the stories and the people involved as they consider defensible and remarkable work design strategy. When you listen to the WhyWork Podcast, you realise that no skeleton in the workplace closet is too sacred to unearth. It’s like listening to the water cooler gossip but then shit gets real, and it all becomes serious – fast. This is a must-listen for executive and emerging managers, work design strategists, human factors specialists and ergonomists, work health safety and law specialists, organisational scientists, occupational health academics, and anyone humoured by office and workplace antics! Get ready to exclaim, “She said WHAT...?” and “He DIDN’T! OMG!”. Laugh along with us while you learn lots.

WhyWork Podcast is a business podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 223 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 84. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Unknown Host hosts WhyWork Podcast, a business show with 223 episodes published.

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  WhyWork Podcast

  S10 Trailer 05: WhyWork: Why Silent?

  Sep 13, 20263 minS10

  S10 Trailer 05: WhyWork: Why Silent? The WhyWork crew - Alan, Trajce, and Sara - are on extended break. But the world of work is as crazy as ever. We encourage In the meantime, Check out Sara's afternoon keynote presentation on Good Work Design at the Work Well Conference 2026 , 7th Oct, Brisbane Conference Centre, sponsored by the Office of Industrial Relations, Workplace Health and Safety Queensland. She will also present on a similar topic for WorkSafe Tasmania in their Safe Work Month, " Good Work Design for Sustainable Futures: Curating Better Work, by Design.' Subscriber's can also check out Sara's disarming, growing, library of 1-min ViVA health at work video recordings-- Work Design Instagram Provocations. While Alan remains content taking a break, walking the dog, and sunning himself across the Tasman seas (oh, yes, he is still working around Australia - contact Alan directly for expert WHS law advice and defense strategy), Trajce is taking a hiatus helping to produce work, health, and safety legal reflections for The Safety Verdict by Longton Blackwell. Watch this space - 2027, here we come again. In the meantime, we remain available to provide keynote address podcast special recordings and work re-design workshops - reach out to design your best work education experience yet!

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  Episode #6

  S10 E06: The Circular Saw Case: A Labour Hire Blind Spot

  Aug 3, 202624 minS10

  Season 10 Episode 06: The Circular Saw Case: A Labour Hire Blind Spot Warning: This episode references workplace injuries and fatalities - we advise listener discretion. In this subscriber-exclusive episode, the WhyWork team, Alan, Trajce, and Sara, examine a real labour hire incident involving a serious circular saw injury to explore where responsibility begins—and where it ends. “Nothing to see here,” says Alan, “or, at least, that is what some organisations might hope to explain.” The discussion considers due diligence obligations across recruitment agencies, host employers and supervisors, including verifying competence, ensuring workers understand instructions, selecting appropriate equipment, providing effective supervision and communicating critical safety information. The hosts also discuss migrant workers, language barriers, visual communication, verification of competency, PPE obligations, and the danger of assuming that everyone shares the same understanding of risk. Sara drifts into her recollections of scuba diving while massively pregnant, “like a beached whale wriggling in my tight scuba outfit,’ she humours. Trajce giggles at her Eastern European underground mining experience, likening her experience to the ‘Compare the Market’ meerkat mascot, Viktor. Combining legal analysis with human factors and practical operational experience, this episode demonstrates why effective safety depends not simply on assigning responsibility, but on designing systems that make safe work possible. Acknowledgement: This episode is part of our Subscriber Case Study Series and was inspired by a real case submitted by Desai Link , Principal Consultant at Dynamic HSE. We thank Desai for contributing this case to encourage practical discussion and shared learning across the safety profession.

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  Episode #5

  S10 E05: The Convergence: Nothing is Out of Bounds

  Jul 27, 202633 minS10

  S10 E05: The Convergence: Nothing is Out of Bounds Warning: This episode includes tribute to the life and death of one of the podcast hosts' father. We advise listener discretion if this is a sensitive topic for you. This episode explores why the management of modern work demands integrated thinking. Rather than separating psychosocial hazards, manual handling, critical controls, environmental conditions, and organisational performance into independent programs, the hosts argue for a whole-of-system approach to designing work. Drawing on legal cases, operational experience, contemporary events, and personal reflections, the discussion examines how workplaces can move beyond siloed thinking to understand the interaction between people, tasks, technology and organisational systems. Along the way, Alan, Trajce, and Sara’s conversation touches on leadership, performance management, work-life boundaries, resilience, and the personal experiences that shape our understanding of meaningful work, including Sara’s tribute to her father and his influence on her systems-design thinking. This episode is a reminder that every workplace challenge exists within a broader human system—and effective solutions rarely come from a single discipline.

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  Episode #4

  S10 E04: Turn Down the Chilli in My Con Carne

  Jul 21, 202634 minS10

  Season 10 Episode 04: Turn Down the Chilli in My Con Carne 'Turn Down the Chilli in My Con Carne' explores the tension between compliance and operational excellence. Alan, Trajce, and Sara discuss why workplaces often become consumed by paperwork, while the realities of work continue to evolve much faster than legislation and codes of practice. This episode extends discussion on safety paperwork, introduced in Season 6 Episode 12 – It’s going SWM’ingly . The conversation examines the distinction between mandatory legal duties, codes of practice, guidance material, and safe work method statements, and asks an important question: are organisations managing work, or managing documentation? Drawing on legal principles, human factors and operational practice, the team explores "fantasy documents", the objective behind compliance, and why understanding how work is performed remains fundamental to creating safer, more adaptive and innovative workplaces. “That’s why there is expressionistic dance,” says Trace much to Alan and Sara’s amusement, “no fixed foxtrot here!” Whether you're a safety professional, operational leader or business owner, this episode challenges the assumption that more paperwork automatically delivers better safety.

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  Episode #3

  S10 E03: Predicting Risk: Why Psychosocial Safety Needs a New Playbook

  Jul 13, 202619 minS10

  Season 10 Episode 03: Predicting Risk: Why Psychosocial Safety Needs a New Playbook WARNING: This episode refers to sexual harassment and occupational psychosocial risks – we advise listener discretion. Meep-meep. The roadrunner—an analogy for the rapidly changing occupational sociocultural landscape. What happens when psychosocial risk management, industrial relations, human rights, and WHS law intersect? In this episode, Alan Girle, Trajce Cvetkovski, and Sara Pazell explore the evolution of psychosocial risk management—from the decommissioning of PAWS to the development of PRAiSE (Psychosocial Risk Assessment and Integrated Solutions for Employers) and the PRA (Psychosocial Risk Analyser) feature in ErgoAnalyst, an integrated task-based risk assessment and work re-design decision support software system. The discussion examines survey bias, the challenges of measuring psychosocial risk, acute versus cumulative exposures, predictive analytics, and the shift from lag indicators to leading indicators. This is a practical discussion about moving beyond compliance to build organisational capability to design better, healthier, productive work. Along the way, the team reflect on favourite childhood cartoon characters and their ‘on the edge’ antics, recent industry forums, WhyWork workshops , and Trajce's "rockstar" days. Alan compares Trajce’s 80’s music genre pursuits with the current phenomenon of the precariat, casualised worker whose livelihood depends on wages and tips (“That’s ‘tips’ with a ‘P’ for our listeners who may have lost that pronunciation,” reminds Alan, in his cheeky but dry wit style). The team take a few more nostalgic detours featuring past Coyote Ugly podcast chatter, the Road Runner's "Meep Meep!", and the cartoon character, Marvin the Martian. For more on the changes impacting industry approaches to psychosocial risk management, download ViVA health at work 's flyer on, " Rethinking Psychosocial Risk ."

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