Occupational Health and Safety Practitioners’ Roles

Occupational health and safety
practitioners’ roles

Centre for Ergonomics, Occupational Safety and Health

by
Kirsten Olsen & Leigh-Ann Harris

OHSIG 2011

Outline
• Definition of OHS practitioner/professional?
• Why look at OHS practitioners’ role?
• What do we know from international research?
• The study of 10 OHS practitioners in NZ
– Methods
– Personal drivers, job role and tasks
– Strategies and impact

School of Management

OHS practitioner or OHS professional?
• OHS practitioner is a person that in one way or another regularly
conducts OHS activities within organisations (Brun & Loiselle 2002)
• OHS professional: someone engaged in providing OHS services
who:
– Has a group identity
– Shares education and training
– Has special, uncommon knowledge
– Uses knowledge in service of others
– Has some autonomy in decision making (individual judgement)
– Adheres to certain values
– Is penalised for substandard practice (Strahlendorf 2004)

Kirsten Olsen

Focus of the presentation
• OHS practitioners - not necessarily professionals
• Employed in positions where OHS is the main
focus (OHS manager, advisor, coordinator...)
• Employed in organisations situated on the North
Island, NZ


Why OHS practitioners?
• OHS practitioners have become a key interpreter
of legislation after change to outcome
regulation (not prescriptive legislation)
• OHS practitioners can be seen as key actors in
implementing change (OHS intervention
programmes)
• We do not know much about what they do in NZ
• Focus on training and certification

International research

1. Onset in the OHS profession, focus on:
- description of OHS professionals’ task
- normative description of their role
Survey based studies

2. Onset in the Ergonomics discipline, looks at:
- OHS professionals’ strategies
- ability to influence change processes and improve OHS
Based on case studies and semi-structured
interviews


Categories of OHS practitioners activities
Brun, Claude & Loiselle (2002)
Examples of prevention activities

Organizational Technical Human

Develop organizational Influence strategic decisions Make upper management
Strategic
policies through technical advice more aware of OHS
priorities
Draw up an annual prevention Develop standards for the use
budget of equipment and materials Foster OHS engagement
among workers
Write an annual report on
OHS activities
Investigate work accidents Conduct studies and research Inform workers
Operational
into technical safety problems
Manage work accident files Train workers in safe work
Carry out risk analysis methods
Ensure that OHS policies and
procedures are correctly Meet with workers to
applied discuss OHS

Kirsten Olsen

International OHS professional studies
Hale and Guldenmund (2006)

• Questionaires containing 169 questions
– 11 on their workplace
– 83 on tasks and frequencies
– 31 on hazards and frequencies
– 36 on collaboration/contacts
– 8 on demographics
– Aim to define the core tasks
• Distributed in 12 countries (10 EU, AU and
Singapore)

Core tasks of OHS professionals (60%)
Hale and Guldenmund (2006)

• Check compliance of policies with laws
• Workplace risk assessment
• Job safety analysis
• Develop policy on machinery and process safety
• Personal Protective Equipment
• Inform and discuss risks with stakeholders
• Investigate incidents, make recommendations
• Physical inspections
• Design safety training
• Audits of workplace behaviour
• Policies on emergency situations


Profile of an Australian OHS professional
Borys, Else, Pryor & Sawyer (2006)

• Older male working full-time with postgraduate
qualification working for the organisation less
than 5 years
• Human focused risk approaches:
– Compliance
– Procedural and PPE solutions
• The lower end of the hierarchy of control
• Functional role rather than strategic

Profile of Australian OHS professionals
Borys, Else, Pryor & Sawyer (2006)

• Task not part of OHS professionals’ job:
– Involvement in integrating safety in design
– Review of design
– Risk analysis of projects, designs or activities
– Member of team planning large-scale maintenance
– Keeps statistics on sickness absence or accidents
– Advise on/set budget for safety
– Carry out cost-benefit analyses

Kirsten Olsen

The Australians conclude
Pryor (2010)

• Difficult to make conclusions about their
strategic influence
• Need to know more about what their activities
encompass
• “We still have little understanding of the
personal, professional and organisational
factors that may have an impact on whether
OHS professionals are strategically influential
with senior management”

Research with the onset in ergonomics
• OHS practitioners’ difficulties initiating change
because it is hard to get OHS included on the
agendas of the organisation:
• OHS is side-lined Hasle & Jensen (2006)

• Explanation: use of ‘knowledge’ strategy and
‘regulation’ strategy Hasle & Sorensen (2011)

• Acting as a ‘political reflective navigator’ improves
influence and impact
Hasle & Sorensen(2011), Broberg & Hermund (2004), Theberge & Neumann (2010)

• Ergonomists have to do ‘organisational work’ in many
cases to be able to create change Theberge & Neumann (2010)

Political reflective navigator
• Political in the sense of pursuing a work
environment agenda
• Reflective in the sense of being able to switch
between different roles and mobilizing different
kind of knowledge depending on the context
• A navigator in the sense of knowing how to
navigate in the complex surrounding in the
technological change process Broberg & Hermund (2004), p 315

Ergonomists’ organisational work
Theberge & Neumann 2011, p 82

Stakeholders
OUTCOMES
ORGANISATIONAL WORK

Organisational
Credibility change
Focused
Organisational Change
Work focused
Ergonomist Organisational workplace
Work change

Credibility Established


Methods for the New Zealand study
• Recruited 10 OHS practitioners: 5 through NZISM, 5 by
snowballing
• Interviews (½ semistructured, ½ structured) lasting 1 – 2
hours
• Transcribed
• Analysed thematically using NVIVO 9:
– personal drive/aim
– job role
– OHS tasks
– strategy
– impact


Demographics
• Practitioners were caracterisised by
– Gender: 5 male/ 5 female
– Age: 6 older than 40 years /4 between 30 and 39 years
– Years practiced in OHS: 6 more than 10 years / 4 between 6&10 years
– OHS education: 3 post grad; 2 degree; 1 diploma; 2 certificate; 2 nil

• Employment: 5 private / 5 public sector, 8 full time / 2 part time
• Large companies (7 from org, with more than 500 employees)
• Short tenure in organisation (7 less than 3 years, 3: 6-10 years)
• Job title: 4 OHS managers, 6 OHS advisors/officers

Personal drive
• Experience of work-related illnesses or injuries
to colleagues or family
• Interest in creating good working environment
• To initiate change


Wants to make a difference
“I really love working with
people and I like to make a
difference and to know that
the work that I’m doing “I like it now because I have a
with, say, an office of people very big influence on the
is helping to keep them culture of the workplace. For a
safe” workplace with around 2000
people one person can make a
big deal, and I find that I have
a good opportunity to change
and that’s what I like about it”


Job role
• No difference related to job title !
• Main role: To advise management (only two mentioned advising staff)
– Advice, coach, train, encourage, help and drive

• Secondary:
– Develop, implement & maintain the OHS management system
– Make sure OHS audits are passed “In a nutshell, my role is to
– it sounds horrible –
• Third: Ensure compliance with the law prevent the organisation
from being prosecuted by
the Department of Labour
(…)”


Core tasks for International and NZ
OHS practitioners
Task Core Int Core NZ
Workplace/risk assessment x x
Job safety analysis x X
Specify safety measures, check compliance x x
Discuss OHS with all levels in the company X X
Design safety training x x
Investigate accidents and make recommendations x x
Physical inspections and audits x x
Develop company policy machinery x
PPE x
Policy on emergency x
Develop and implement OHSMS and annual plans x
Design and implement safety campaign x
Deliver OHS training x
Statistics on accidents and advise on injury claims x


Focus of OHS practitioners’ tasks
Examples of prevention activities
Organizational dimension Technical dimension Human dimension
Examples Examples Examples
Strategic Develop organizational Influence strategic decisions of Make upper management
policies an organization through more aware of OHS
technical advice priorities
Draw up an annual prevention
budget Develop standards for the use Foster OHS engagement
of equipment and raw among workers
Write an annual report on materials
OHS activities
Operational Investigate work accidents Conduct studies and research Inform workers
into technical safety problems
Manage work accident files Train workers in safe work
Carry out risk analysis Methods
Ensure that OHS policies and
procedures are correctly Meet with workers to
applied discuss
OHS

Impact
Rung No. Examples
7 Improvements of health (1) Reduction of stress related sick leave
6 Reduction in incidents (5) Reported incidents
5 Reduction of exposure 3 Reduction in incidents of threats
Reduction of exposure to chlorine
Reduction in lifting and carrying
4 Improvements of the 7 - chairs, workstation layout
production system or - change of layout, management of clients.
the work processes Two related to introduction of new equipment
3 Improvement of the 10 Implementation of OHSM systems, integration
approach to OHS in other systems, organisation of OHS work
2 Change in attitude and 10 1st line managers accepted their OHS
behaviour responsibilities, asked for help
1 Change in knowledge 10 Through training and coaching 1st line
management and OHS reps

Strategies
• Reactive rather than proactive
• Elements of proactive strategies related to new
technology/buildings
– based on knowledge strategy built on causal relation failed
against economic and regulatory arguments
• Built on failures
• Inform top management or head offices overseas about
OHS performance:
– Incident rates,
– Audit progress and results
– Change in regulation
• To get buy-in to influence middle and first line
management

Strategies focused on middle management
• Work with them, show them how to do it, do it
for them. Which strategy depended on:
• The manager’s experience and pressure
• The OHS practitioner’s time and resources
• Make the managers OHS performance visible to
senior management and OHS committees
• Audit requirements used to guide management
New Strategy ?
• Did not mention Regulation strategies

Importance of influencing different
stakeholder groups
“A lot of what you do in health and safety is you have to sell it.
You have to sell it and promote it, and so we do a lot of that
promotion. (...) I think you have to use different strategies for
your target audience".

How do you know which strategy to choose?

“Trial and error, yeah, pretty much. It’s like that everywhere,
isn’t it? Yep, trial and error, but also, (...) you meet with people,
you have discussions, it helps to inform you of what the culture
is like and what their appetite for risk is. I think that’s quite
important to be able to gauge and read what the organisation’s
priorities are. It’s very political”.

Conclusion ?
• OHS practitioners are facilitators of change
• Aim to improve the work environment
• Focus on middle and first line management
• See H&S representatives as important stakeholders
• Influence different stakeholders
• Learn from experience ‘trial and error’
• Reactive strategies
• Knowledge and audit strategies are preferred
• Main impact on stakeholders’ knowledge, attitude
and OHS management system.

Questions?

• Which strategy do you use?

• In which situation do you use it?
• When does it work?
• What kind of ‘organisational work’ do
you do?

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