Following on from the above collaborative approach in training we looked into last week, we have seen a significant spike in requests for facilitation of partnership programs for reps and committee members, which include such topics as:
- Project Management
- Negotiation
- Conflict
- Budgeting skills
This encourages health and saftey representatives and health and safety committees to become business patners, and play an active role in increasing their impacts when it comes to promoting health and safety, and establishing WHS practices.
Partnering – is a trend that has the most potential to foster improvement, better change management and better engagement. The parameters for partnering vary, yet some fundamentals appear to be universal.
- The committee has a discretionary budget or can seek to fund adequately researched projects and initiatives without “management approval” In the old sense of let’s take it to management and management taking the lead.
- The Partners are involved in the negotiation of what that budget should be for the year and are accountable for results. Showing that the project did, in fact, deliver the improvement it was designed to address.
- The EHS Function includes the Partners in the broader resource pool and as a result, may require coaching and inclusion in functional decisions on initiatives.
One of the promonent benefits is ownership; the HSE function becomes more broadly inclusive and therefore seen as a resource for general improvement. Partners are considered to have more influence, and as the voice of the people, resistance to change dwindles.
Stay tuned for next week’s post, the final part of the surprising trends in EHSQRT mini-series, where I’ll be looking at how recognition and reward programs are returning to make a big impact in workplace management.
Cheryl A Daley – CEO, Boutique Consulting Firm (Previously Leadership Headquarters)
Apart from a six-year stint as a GM of Operations for a manufacturing company in Sydney, Cheryl has a history spanning 20+ years in the EHSQT and business performance space in Australia and overseas and has worked in most industries and sectors.
Cheryl identified several years ago, after spending some time on an Industry Association Board and then as an Executive Officer for another Industry Association, that EHSQT was transitioning yet again.
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