IOSH Magazine January/February 2023

Let's be bold

Happy new year! How excited am I to be your IOSH president for 2022-23? 

I’m blessed to be representing such a key organisation, one so close to my heart for so long, and to do so at a time when OSH is recognised as the fifth pillar of universal human rights.

In June, the International Labour Organization adopted a safe and healthy work environment as a fundamental principle and right. Once fully adopted, the world will never be the same again. If that can’t inspire all of us and our organisation to do remarkable things for a safer, healthier global workplace, what will?

So let’s be courageous. Let’s commit ourselves as OSH professionals to denying potential hazards the chance to fester. Let’s remove them at source by forging a clear, ambitious mindset, one that thinks not in terms of the management of risk but of its eradication. But, yes, we’ll have to be bold. We’ll need to challenge and influence those at the highest levels.

This emboldened approach will be further fuelled and sustained by the next generation of OSH professionals, new talent with the ambition and dynamism not only to force health, safety and wellbeing into the world’s boardrooms, but to bring it further forward in the global public’s consciousness. We must convince career starters to see OSH as their first profession, and we need to boost IOSH stakeholder relationships and create clear pathways for progression through our membership structure. We must also help new professionals to prove themselves and their capabilities. This way, we’ll ensure our profession builds further the respect and reputation  it needs to be most effective.

To feed this future pipeline, we’ll continue to invest in our dynamic Future Leaders community; we’ll help members develop through the newly launched ‘Opportunity starts here’ programme; and IOSH will continue to establish its strong presence in our schools, colleges and universities.

In projecting this drive to maximise potential, IOSH will continue to advocate for neurodiverse people and support our hugely skilled network of members and volunteers who represent so much of the global workspace. This way, we’ll ensure we tap into a wider field of talent and be sure to follow our Catch the Wave fundamentals of social sustainability in doing so.  

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen the stock of the OSH profession rise to new heights, with an enhanced awareness of the value we bring to business and society. So let’s use this hard-won credibility to support and influence all those who can help create a safer, healthier world of work. And to help them to do it the right way. 

Lawrence Webb President, IOSH