Occupational Safety

5 of the most inspiring people in occupational health and safety

Thoughts, theories and practices: personal role models

5 minutes05/13/2020

At Quentic, we recently published our Safety Management Trend Report for 2020. In the last chapter, our experts shared the innovators and trailblazers of the occupational health and safety field. Whether you are a safety specialist, student, manager or CEO with an awareness of health & safety – anyone can benefit from browsing through this collection of people who are shaping our industry. We have linked exciting books, PDFs, videos and podcasts by and about these people.

Amy Edmondson

Amy C. Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School and the author of The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth.

"Amy Edmonson's book "Psychological Safety" really was an inspiring reading." (Eduardo Blanco-Munoz)

PAPER: Managing the risk of learning: Psychological safety in work teams

This paper explores how members of a team can overcome the interpersonal risks they face every day at work to help themselves, their teams and their organizations engage in collective learning.

PODCAST: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace

Curt Nickisch interviews Amy Edmondson for the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. Topics include psychological safety and how to create a fearless organization.

David Provan

David Provan is an internationally recognized safety expert. He is the founder of Forge Works, a safety consultancy firm, and also works as a part-time lecturer and researcher at Griffith University in Australia. He and cohost Drew Rae also run the Safety of Work podcast.

"David Provan is doing a lot of great work on what it is to be a safety professional. The things he's saying are really important and we should be listening." (Ron Gantt)

ARTICLE: Safety II professionals: How resilience engineering can transform safety practice

In this paper, David Provan and colleagues David Woods, Sidney Dekker and Drew Rae define the two modes of safety management and explore the challenges safety professionals face when changing their roles to embrace Safety-II. When should safety professionals re-enforce alignment, and when should they support cutting-edge adaptations?

Andrew Hopkins

Andrew Hopkins Occupational Health and Safety

Andrew Hopkins is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the Australian National University in Canberra. In his books, he analyzes incidents, including the Macondo Blowout, the BP Texas City oil refinery disaster, the Longford refinery gas explosion and the Gretley mine disaster.

"Prof Dr. Andrew Hopkins continues to drive home the importance of creating the right structure for OSH to flourish." (Professor Dr. Andrew Sharman)

VIDEO: The role of knowledge as a conceptual framework to underpin OHS professonal practice

Andrew Hopkins has contributed to the OHS Body of Knowledge, the collective knowledge that should be shared by generalist OHS professionals to provide a sound basis for understanding the causation and control of work-related fatalities, injuries, diseases and poor health. Watch him speak about concepts like "safety culture", "risk" or "reasonably practicable" and find out if they are to be dismissed or if they indeed hold greater value for OHS practitioners.

Daniel Hummerdal

Daniel Hummerdal is the Chief Advisor for Health and Safety Innovation at WorkSafe New Zealand. As a world-leading health and safety innovator, he is deeply involved in the development and implementation of Safety-II and Safety Differently concepts.

"Daniel Hummerdal is working with a regulator in New Zealand to innovate new ways for safety regulators to interact with businesses. Big things could be coming out of there." (Ron Gantt)

PODCAST: Safety on Tap

Andrew Barett interviews Daniel Hummerdal to find out about Worksafe New Zealand and his role as a chief advisor for health and safety innovation there. He sets out to learn, not just from a regulatory perspective, or just in New Zealand – and delivers a podcast jam-packed with translatable insights.

Drew Rae

Dr. Drew Rae is Senior Lecturer in the Safety Science Innovation Lab at Griffith University, where he teaches courses on research methods and safety engineering, and manages the lab’s research program. He co-hosts the Safety of Work podcast and is the Associate Editor for the Safety Science journal.

"Professor Drew Rae is doing research on how to declutter safety management practices using evidence-based approaches. This could revolutionize safety practice." (Ron Gantt)

ARTICLE: Safety work versus the safety of work

Dr. Drew Rae and David Provan argue that safety work is primarily a performance rather than goal-directed behavior. It may contribute to the safety of work, but this is only part of its purpose. Their case is presented as a model for organizational safety activity that represents safety as a special case of ‘institutional work’

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