 |
| 2013 ASSE President Kathy A. Seabrook, CSP, CMIOSH, EurOSHM |
While in the Newark airport recently, I noticed a businesswoman carrying a bag emblazoned with this quote: "The future is unwritten." Attributed to Joe Strummer, front man of the band The Clash, these words inspired me to think about ASSE and our unwritten future. Opportunities abound for ASSE, the safety profession and safety professionals, if we are bold enough to recognize and seize them. Let's consider just a few of the ways that ASSE helps us collaborate to write a bright future.
Creating the Road Map
Our profession is on the cusp of great change and ASSE is positioned to both inform and lead this change. Over the past 8 months, I've shared updates on the Society's many strategic initiatives, from students and global outreach to promoting our profession's business value and connecting safety to business goals and initiatives. In particular, ASSE's collaborative partnership in the Center for Safety and Health Sustainability and our creation of the Risk Assessment Institute are key steps in our efforts to ensure that corporate leaders consider occupational safety when making business decisions.
The Society is also an active, influential voice in the collaborative global effort to frame the profession. By level setting competencies for safety professionals, we will provide a benchmark, agreed to by global consensus, on the skills (technical and business) and the readiness needed for safety professionals to work effectively anywhere in the world. These diverse initiatives directly affect each of us as SH&E professionals practicing today, and they move our profession and ASSE toward the future.
Leading Culture Change
ASSE and our members are also at the forefront of efforts to develop an international standard for occupational safety and health management systems. ASSE is the administrator of the U.S. Technical Advisory Group (TAG) for ISO Project Committee 283, Occupational Health and Safety Management SystemsÑRequirements. More than 80 TAG stakeholders and thought leaders met in Washington, DC, to participate in the development of ISO 45001, a risk-based standard that will encompass leadership engagement, risk assessment and continual improvement. By fostering a systems-thinking approach to safety management, this standard has the potential to transform business culture and help elevate SH&E professionals and the profession worldwide.
This standards-development work ties directly to ASSE's efforts to educate our stakeholders on the value of occupational safety, and to help SH&E professionals align occupational safety with business strategy, goals and planning. The culture transformation that occurs when safety professionals partner and collaborate to inform organizational strategy and influence operational decision making is both evolutionary and revolutionary. It takes business time to change its culture around workplace safety. Yet, when safety professionals step outside their comfort zone and engage executives by making a business case for safety, companies can experience operational excellence, high productivity, top quality, lower costs and continuous improvement. That can be revolutionary.
Connecting the Dots
While the future is unwritten, by focusing on assessing risks and seizing opportunities, developing a dynamic strategic plan and engaging key stakeholders in understanding the business value of occupational safety, we can take proactive steps to ensure that the future is a bright one for safety professionals, our profession and ASSE.
Opportunities abound for us to become valued business partners, contributors, in-demand collaborators and go-to resources for decision makers in our organizations. I wonder, What choices you will make today to seize these opportunties and help write our collective future?
"We are continually faced by great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems."
Lee Iacocca
Creating the Road Map
Our profession is on the cusp of great change and ASSE is positioned to both inform and lead this change. Over the past 8 months, I've shared updates on the Society's many strategic initiatives, from students and global outreach to promoting our profession's business value and connecting safety to business goals and initiatives. In particular, ASSE's collaborative partnership in the Center for Safety and Health Sustainability and our creation of the Risk Assessment Institute are key steps in our efforts to ensure that corporate leaders consider occupational safety when making business decisions.
The Society is also an active, influential voice in the collaborative global effort to frame the profession. By level setting competencies for safety professionals, we will provide a benchmark, agreed to by global consensus, on the skills (technical and business) and the readiness needed for safety professionals to work effectively anywhere in the world. These diverse initiatives directly affect each of us as SH&E professionals practicing today, and they move our profession and ASSE toward the future.
Leading Culture Change
ASSE and our members are also at the forefront of efforts to develop an international standard for occupational safety and health management systems. ASSE is the administrator of the U.S. Technical Advisory Group (TAG) for ISO Project Committee 283, Occupational Health and Safety Management SystemsÑRequirements. More than 80 TAG stakeholders and thought leaders met in Washington, DC, to participate in the development of ISO 45001, a risk-based standard that will encompass leadership engagement, risk assessment and continual improvement. By fostering a systems-thinking approach to safety management, this standard has the potential to transform business culture and help elevate SH&E professionals and the profession worldwide.
This standards-development work ties directly to ASSE's efforts to educate our stakeholders on the value of occupational safety, and to help SH&E professionals align occupational safety with business strategy, goals and planning. The culture transformation that occurs when safety professionals partner and collaborate to inform organizational strategy and influence operational decision making is both evolutionary and revolutionary. It takes business time to change its culture around workplace safety. Yet, when safety professionals step outside their comfort zone and engage executives by making a business case for safety, companies can experience operational excellence, high productivity, top quality, lower costs and continuous improvement. That can be revolutionary.
Connecting the Dots
While the future is unwritten, by focusing on assessing risks and seizing opportunities, developing a dynamic strategic plan and engaging key stakeholders in understanding the business value of occupational safety, we can take proactive steps to ensure that the future is a bright one for safety professionals, our profession and ASSE.
Opportunities abound for us to become valued business partners, contributors, in-demand collaborators and go-to resources for decision makers in our organizations. I wonder, What choices you will make today to seize these opportunties and help write our collective future?
"We are continually faced by great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems."
Lee Iacocca
No comments:
Post a Comment