IOSH president Subash Ludhra has urged delegates at the IOSH 2012 Conference to allocate health and safety responsibility to their organisations boardroom.
This was the key message of Subash’s afternoon seminar at Manchester Central, which gave tips on how to deliver messages to your board in a way that will ensure they will listen.
He stressed the importance of knowing what your company’s objectives are and how health and safety objectives fit within them. He explained that health and safety ownership should come from the top of an organisation and for this to happen practitioners must ensure they create a health and safety strategy that both management and employees can engage with.
Subash said delegates should be well prepared before pitching ideas to management and convey conviction when relaying their suggestions. Using the right language is also essential, as the board will mainly be interested in how your recommendations will affect the company’s bottom line. This could include the need to take out additional insurances or reduce the amount of PPE.
Other techniques for influencing management were discussed such as using visual aids and statistics, but it is vital that the information given is relevant and fits within the company’s objectives.
A question from the floor asked if Subash thought it was a good idea to use the Corporate Manslaughter Act as a means of scaring board members into taking personal responsibility for health and safety. Subash replied: “You have to pick your fights. I personally don’t think it’s worth lecturing your bosses on their legal responsibilities, as they will already know this. They will be looking to you to make suggestions on how they can improve safety performance and how this will positively affect their bottom line. You need to think of the bigger picture and go into meetings with multiple solutions and not just a single solution.”
