Assessing and reinforcing safety awareness with mock trials

Last week, when I attended a mock trial conducted by SafeTM for the Psychosocial Safety and Leadership Institute, I was reminded about how effective a mock trial can be to assess and inform the knowledge and understanding of your managers and workers about their safety responsibilities. The mock trial is also a great way to reinforce to your team the importance of them implementing and maintaining your safety management systems.

What is a mock trial?

The mock trial is a simulation of a court trial. You can undertake this process in relation to health and safety duties, basing the trial on a safety incident that could occur in your business. The managers and workers who are ‘witnesses’ in the proceedings can be subjected to questioning about their actual roles in the business’ incident response system. With this approach, managers and workers who participate in the session will feel what it is like to be challenged on how they could have done to better manage safety.

Focus of the mock trial

In the mock trial that I attended, the focus was on the risk of psychosocial harm posed to a worker, and the resultant prosecution of the company and director for failing to control that risk.

Mock trials can be adapted to any industry. For example, if you operate in the construction industry, you can use a real-life example from your business or develop your own. It can be as simple as an apprentice carpenter falling and suffering a serious injury after assisting a crane operator to lift a load of joists and beams, despite this not being the apprentice’s job. In such a case, the mock trial would look broadly at what led to the situation where the apprentice acted in that manner and the incident itself, including the failures of others, e.g. managers not inducting the apprentice into the site or providing proper supervision.

Why are mock trials effective?

The mock trial is effective for several reasons:

participants are ‘involved’ in an incident to which they can relate;
participants have to think about the issues and respond to questions that they would be asked by an inspector investigating the matter or by a prosecutor;
peer review from other managers and workers watching the drama allows for wide-ranging discussion of the consequences of a safety incident and what could be done better; and
the environment of a court room emphasises the significance of the consequences of the incident.

While online training sessions are easy to conduct for large groups of workers, a mock trial is a proactive, engaging and effective way to achieve a better understanding of the importance of safety practices. Rather than having to live through a real safety incident and prosecution, the mock trial ensures that your managers and other staff understand the reason why safety systems and processes are so important before a major incident occurs.

When does a demotion amount to dismissal?
In Taylor v Department of Justice and Community Safety (2026), a Victorian public sector employee successfully argued his demotion and transfer following a disciplinary process was not authorised ...