LISTEN:
Hey, it’s Andrew, and this is Safety on Tap.
Since you’re listening in, you must be a leader wanting to grow yourself and drastically improve health and safety along the way. Welcome to you, you’re in the right place. If this is your first time listening in, thanks for joining us and well done for trying something different to improve! And of course welcome back to all of you wonderful regular listeners.
In addition to our regular podcasts, this is a little series which brings you the candidates for the 2020 Australian Institute of Health and Safety board elections.
Why you might be thinking? There’s a few reasons. If you’ve heard these before, you can skip right ahead to . Otherwise, indulge a minute to give you some context.
First, I believe in the idea that we are professionals, which means collectively we are a profession. That obliges us to behave as professionals, which requires leadership, and governance over how we present ourselves to the market as individuals who provide valuable labour and services.
Second, I believe in trying new things. Safety on Tap and the Australian Institute of Health and Safety are the first in Australia, and as far as I can tell the world, to publicise Board election candidates through podcasting to members and the broader professional community. I started doing this as an experiment in engagement, a way to test whether a different approach, to the Board elections in this context, will result in a different level of engagement. It has proven to be highly engaging, which means the AIHS attracts better quality board members, more members who vote which improves the quality of the election, and most of all better engagement between the fee paying members and the board members accountable for delivering a return on their fees. I’m kinda pleasantly surprised by how these interviews have improved this engagement goal in these over the past few years.
And third, I believe in connectedness. That’s one of the reasons why I call myself the Chief Connector at Safety on Tap – I connect people with new ideas, people with each other, and people with their better, future selves. As humans, as professionals, and as leaders, our success is related to the extent to which we productively connect with each other, connect with a diversity of views, and connect with a common purpose. Knowing the people who lead our profession is important, and fee paying members having a say in their appointment is vital.
Now for those of you not members of the Australian Institute of Health and Safety, this might give you reason to reflect on why, and whether becoming a member is a good idea. I’ll let you make your own mind up. For those of you not from Australia….you might be thinking these won’t be relevant to you. I suggest the opposite, I think there is plenty of insight you can get from these interviews, which you might take back to the professional association you belong to in your country. This is also a glimpse at the perspective of professionals leading and governing a profession, as opposed to leading health and safety in an organisation. They are two very different things.
We’ve given each candidate only 10 minutes to convince you they are worthy to serve members of the AIHS. To get more info, including detailed profiles of all election candidates, visit aihs.org.au
Let me know what you think about these – also if you post a comment or a question on safetyontap.com, you get direct access to each candidate so they can respond to your comment or question.
Just listened to Naomi’s pitch for re-election to the AIHS and would be glad to cast my vote for re-election. I sincerely hope that she regains the chair position and is able to maintain the vision, momentum and energy at board level – which I might add is supported by a CEO with a similar vision.
We, as an institute, need to be recognised alongside other professional bodies, such as IEAUST (“Engineers Australia”) and a strong board with a vision is vital. Naomi’s energy and drive deserves to be recognised both by the board and by the membership cohort.
WOW! Stephen, thank you so much for your support. There are so many things that we have on our ‘to do’ list, and it’s a bit like the chicken or the egg. But we are trying to drive change and its support like this that keeps us all going! I truly believe we [profession] can have an impact and really influence industry, governments and our communities. And I plan to give it all I have to make a start.