Ahmed El Hadidi explains why preventing accidents and illnesses in workplaces is not the responsibility of just safety and health professionals
Occupational safety and health and orchestras are not commonly associated with each other.
However, there is one similarity they do have – the need for teamwork. You need more than one instrument to create a beautiful symphony. In the same way, you need more than safety and health professionals alone to ensure workers are protected.
Without teamwork, the sound which comes out of an orchestra will be dull and incoherent, which will result in irregularities. Or from a safety and health perspective, it will result in incidents and injuries.
Therefore, it is crucial when looking to successfully implement safety and health management systems that everyone plays their part. From the top of an organisation to the bottom, all staff have a role to play. It is not solely the responsibility of safety and health practitioners.
Key to this teamwork is proper leadership and a belief in what the safety and health management systems – or the symphony – are about.
That is why leadership was the theme for IOSH’s recent UAE networking conference.
Leaders play a crucial role in implementing management systems. They need to buy into it and be passionate about it in a way that rubs off on others.
When it comes to preventing workplace accidents and illnesses, the role of the leader is to ensure that they have a health and safety hat on at all times when working – just as they do when it comes to other areas of work such as efficiency, cost reduction, spoilages and even HR.
Our networking conference, held at the Address Dubai Marina on Thursday 10 December, looked into the role of leadership.
One of the key aspects in this is the importance of understanding that a leader’s role should not be mistaken for a manager’s role, as they are completely different.
Leaders need to engage those who work with them. Without this, it becomes a one-way communication, which is not the best method to ensure people are safe and healthy. After all, who knows best the hazard associated with a specific job other than the person doing it?
It is also important to realise that a leader doesn’t necessarily have to be a person high in the hierarchy, such as a company director. It can be someone starting out on his/her career. The most important thing is that the person in question believes that there is a benefit and return for what they are doing.
Of course, not all practices which were referred to at the networking conference will fit with every organisation as everyone is different. But what the practices referred to should have done is act as a mind opener to different methods and solutions to safety and health issues.
Non-health and safety practitioners need to understand that they do have a role and that the success of the system cannot be dependent on one person.
It has been debated several times that health and safety practitioners should adopt tools used by other functions such as sales and marketing to promote and sell their work to others within an organisation. Traditionally, the majority of them were against this because they don’t see it is their role to convince people that they should protect themselves.
However, this view is changing. We as practitioners need to grasp the concept that our soft skills are as important as our competencies; we need to believe that health and safety is not a job or a function it is a way of life and an attitude.
And key to implementing this is teamwork. It’s just like being in an orchestra.
Ahmed El Hadidi is chair of IOSH’s UAE Branch
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