What I admire in OHS professionals.

Guest Post by George Robotham 

Over the years I have worked with many so-called OHS professionals. Some of them have been pretty ordinary operators. I do not generally refer to people who work in OHS as professionals as I believe being a professional implies application of an unique body of knowledge, I do not believe a unique body of knowledge exists in OHS.

You will also love this: Ode To The Safety Professional

These are the characteristics of the better OHS people I have worked with that have impressed me-

1. An ability to question the validity and reliability of the smoothly marketed safety fads
2. Passion and a fire in the belly
3. An excellent sense of humour, integrating humour into your approach will pay dividends
4. An ability to bounce back from the inevitable pressures of the role
5. A robust personality and an ability to argue ones case under pressure.
6. Life skills
7. An empathetic approach
8. Do what you say you will do
9. Be honest and ethical in everything you do, if you are not you will be found out eventually and your credibility will suffer.
10. Be positive
11. Be a good listener
12. A good dose of humble
13. Being a lifelong learner. Recognise that broader management skills are needed as well as OHS technical skills
14. Committed to personal development of those they interact with.
15. An enquiring mind
16. Admit your mistakes and when you cannot give a good response
17. Keep in touch with the stakeholders regularly and adhere to promises made
18. Good interpersonal and communications skills
19. Leadership skills
20. Get your priorities right-Recognise safety will never be the number one priority, safety must be fully integrated into other business functions
21. Broad thinking- Think outside the square and challenge the status-quo
22. Pareto Principle-Remember the Pareto Principle, the 80/20 rule, identify the 20% of things you do that give you 80% of your results and concentrate on them
23. A commitment to a continuous improvement philosophy and ability to implement Quality Management.
24. Change management-OHS management is all about change management and generic skills can be learnt.
25. Project management-OHS lends itself very well to a project management approach for major change.
26. Team-building skills-These essential skills can be learnt
27. Time management skills-Relatively easy to learn this
28. Sharing-“People support what they create” Not involving the workforce in decisions about OHS change is the road to disaster.
29. Well developed bull-dust detector, by the hell you will need it.
30. Try to avoid engaging in the many acts of public masturbation that surround the safety world.

Impressive OHS professionals

The OHS professionals I have worked with who have impressed me were-

Tim Wilson – Early in my OHS career I made an error of judgement while working for a safety consultancy organisation. The General Manager attempted to discipline me in a team meeting. My manager, Tim, intervened and took full responsibility for my mistake. I later thanked Tim who explained he did what he did to send a message, “I am in charge of this outfit and no-one else interferes with my team. Making mistakes that we learn from is perfectly acceptable” I would have followed Tim anywhere after this.

It has taken me thirty years and reading extensively about leadership to realise the significance of what Tim did that day.“Leaders send out messages, often subtly, about what they value and expect.”

Laurie Mason – Laurie was the corporate Safety Coordinator for Utah Development Company when I was a field safety adviser. Looking back on it now I never appreciated how advanced for his time Laurie was and his questioning of the status quo.

Geoff Miller – I was Geoff’s assistant in a field safety role. Geoff was an enthusiast about safety, put me under his wing personally and professionally and I owe a lot to Geoff.

Bruce Treasure – I worked with Bruce in Utah and BHP Coal and I can think of no greater example of what an OHS professional should look like. Bruce has advanced OHS technical skills and broader management skills; he is a really funny bastard and a great bloke. Bruce is the Safety & Human Resources Manager at Mossman Mill.

Rod Taylor – Rod’s 2 outstanding skills are his interpersonal and communications skills. He is the sort of bloke people want to develop a relationship with. Rod is the Health & Safety Adviser at Inergen, Millmerran Power Station.

Terry Condon – Terry had a very strong sense of what was fair, decent and right in interactions with others. He also used humour exceptionally well in his interactions with others

John Grubb-For about a year I worked with a General Manager Operations, John, who could best be described as a humble but focused leader who had an overriding commitment to safety. John accepted the role of Safety Champion. John would turn up at operating sites in the middle of the night to see how safety was being managed. He used to give the workers his mobile number and tell them to call him anytime if a safety issue was not solved to their satisfaction. This did not happen often but there was some big action when it did. John let his subordinates know he expected nothing less than 100% commitment to safety, those who did not comply were encouraged to lift their game. Word quickly got around about his safety expectations, single handed he raised the profile of safety in the organisation.

Less than impressive manager

Looking back on it I have worked for quite a number of less than impressive managers, one bloke deserves a special mention.

Then there was my manager, Greg. I organised an outside training organisation to conduct training for health and safety representatives. Early in the course the instructor asked me to come over and talk to the participants who raised a number of quite reasonable safety issues with me. Some were within my power to fix so we discussed how to fix them. Some required management action so I asked Greg to attend. Well what a circus! We lost count of the number of times he told us how committed to safety he was, we also lost count of the even greater number of times he refused to commit to positive action to address the issues. In the end the group lost patience with Greg and told him to leave and stop wasting their time. The course instructor, a highly qualified OHS professional, was dumbfounded by the performance Greg put on and asked me where I had got him from. It was not long after this that I resigned, I figured I was wasting my time with a manager like Greg.

Conclusion

You do not have to be Super Man or Super Woman but it will help.