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Institute of Directors conference 2024 Top 5: Success in health and safety governance

My musings on the comments I heard on health and safety governance over the Institute of Directors conference in May 2024 (check out my other top 5's too). It's an ongoing reminder to do more and expect more as directors of every organisation in the field of health, safety and wellbeing!

From a panel discussion with Mike Cosman, Garth Gallaway, Sarah Ottrey and Francois Barton:

- The ultimate purpose of an organisation is to be safe and successful, driven by competence and culture. How do directors assure ourselves of a culture of trust and engagement especially across multi-entity environments?
- The need to map our PCBU relationships (thanks to Carrie Hurihanganui from Auckland Airport on this point) to surface what these are to directors and make clear what the mitigations are from a risk perspective. But it is also our responsibility to govern within the principles of manaakitanga and this should drive the mitigations.
- Directors must ensure these programs are being carried out competently. Practice seen vs practice imagined (or reported) – it’s our responsibility to know what’s actually going on.
- It’s the director’s choice to not get stuck with covering our a***s and see risk mitigation as an opportunity to change practice, with value add in areas other than just HS&W. Innovation can create safe workplaces as much as restricting activity can.
- Safety is not just an absence of high-risk activity – as this may be an essential component of the business.