Talking about safety – old skills in new ways

Australia’s latest Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has a strong background in technology investment and is urging the country to embrace innovation.  This has generated a focus on information technology start-ups but it may also create opportunities for occupational health and safety (OHS) professionals, if they are willing to change.

There has been a quick growth in OHS-related Apps over the last few years.  Many of these Apps can be very useful but developers usually assume that Apps are read or used indoors, or in quiet environments or out of the sunshine or by English-speakers or that everyone has an App-friendly smart phone.  They also seem to believe that there is a generic universal workplace, as if the theory of forms applies.  Many of these App developers are OHS professionals who are looking to monetise their skills and broaden their marketing base.  But social trends may be indicating a different market direction.

An article in the Australian Financial Review called “Great big secret of the online economy” focusses, principally, on the issue of productivity but mentions the changing nature of work.

Richard Dobbs, director of the McKinsey Global Institute, is paraphrased and quoted:

“Dobbs warns that computerisation and robotics mean many of the jobs we take for grated today will be done by machines, creating a divided labour market. On one side will be the people with skills at the at the cutting edge of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (or STEM to use the jargon), and those whose jobs depend on human interactions on the other.

“If you can’t do STEM get some interpersonal skills, because they’re the ones that are going to be created,” Dobbs said.” (emphasis added)

“Human interactions” and “interpersonal skills” is where the OHS profession sits and from where it can grow.  The OHS implications and context of the STEM-based innovations always need translation and explanation and OHS professionals who can listen and talk will have a healthy future career.

OHS professionals are often included in an amorphous group called compliance officers.  Frequently this is used as a derogatory term but it is an accurate description and those who use the term dismissively fail to understand that compliance has not been a defined line between right and wrong for several decades.  The band of the compliance created largely by the inclusion of “as far as is reasonably practicable” in workplace safety laws requires the compliance officers to be flexible, agile and innovative but, most importantly, able to explain how companies comply with this new broad definition of compliance. To do this the professional must have some understanding of business operations and pressures and contemporary organisational structures.

This is where safety Apps fail and where the OHS profession is struggling.

OHS may be simple, or perceived as just “common sense”, but the simplicity still needs explaining.  An App may give an answer or a risk factor or a completed checklist but it cannot say how this fits into the organisational policies, procedures or risk management criteria.  People are needed for this task and skilled OHS professionals are best placed to provide the explanation or translation IF they are creative thinkers and are prepared to adapt to the changing social and economic circumstances.

This brings the conversation back to productivity.  OHS is often seen as an unnecessary business cost but this shows shallow thinking and a fundamental misunderstanding of the business role of workplace safety.  Pure OHS thinking would say that the major principle is to eliminate harm to workers. But one effect of eliminating, or reducing harm, is for workers to continue to be productive.  This secondary link seems to be missing from many of the safety discussions, particularly in the small- to medium-sized business sector.

This reality is often glibly stated as “OHS is good for business” but such slogans are not enough; they have never been enough.  It needs explaining. What is meant by “good”? Productive? Profitable? Fair? Safety professionals rarely explain beyond the cliche, and they need to.

Consider this ridiculous but well-intended slogan –  “We want all our workers to go home at the end of the shift, the same way they came to work”. What, by train? Hungover? Fatigued? Angry?  Those who say such things assume that everyone knows what they are talking about and share in this value.  But it is not enough. The reality must be explained.

OHS can be innovative, agile and creative.  The “safety differently” movement is part of this but so is Rob Long’s “psychology of risk“, and so is Hudson’s maturity model.  But innovation does not have to come from what is new; it can be a new application of what is old.  Talking about safety, explaining safety, listening to others discussing safety are all skills that have existed for at least a century and legislated for over 40 years in the requirement to consult.

Too many people are looking for technology-based solutions when, at least in OHS, there is more of a future in applying human interaction and interpersonal skills to this discipline. It might not make you a millionaire and have Google looking to acquire your App but it will make workplaces safer.  And isn’t that what you joined this profession to do?

Kevin Jones