Young Safety Professionals NSW ran our June session last night on how we can better improve the skills and learning environments for individuals studying Safety.
One of the key takeaways for me was the comment about how overwhelming it is for people undertaking their first Safety role. This was even evident when a work placement was part of the learning process.
The pressure to take it all in and have sufficient soft skills to be able to integrate into an organisation, business model or industry and to be effective immediately was very evident coming from the YSP’s. The comment ‘Sink or swim’ came up often and even if the individual felt supported in the role it was largely due to informal processes and a distinct lack of recognising that immersion to the point of ‘boiling the frog’ is well, normal.
I reflect back on my first safety role and it was very similar, I’m sure others will agree. Would like to strongly point out here that normal doesn’t mean it should or always will be this was. But then how can we change?
We had the pleasure last night of having people from SafetyCulture, Ammo.co and ComplyFlow who are all focused on the digital experience and leveraging technology to improve safety outcomes. It was refreshing to have qualified opinions and discussions on where VR/AR is at, get it seems the consensus was we are a while yet from this being able to be used at scale. One resource I did locate was a Google Cardboard app assisting people with public speaking (video). I hold high hopes for the future that other developments can assist in the learning and application of soft skills, not just through well this is a prestart, here is 200 people and go..!
Until then we need to be critical of both our onboarding process and how we support people who are undertaking learning. We shouldn’t be waiting for the course to finish or a work placement to come along before we as employees become part of the process. We have valuable perspectives to offer and help shape experiences prior to that first day.
Which comes full circle to the title of the article, the more we can be transparent as to what the world of work, industry and business is before that first day of work hits, the better chance the flood of sensory new experience is a garden hose rather than the current boiling fire hose we have now. Hopefully, this may have a positive byproduct and stem some of the leaky pipeline currently in the industry affecting diversity.
I’m happy to take the above to the next NSW SIA committee meeting and also escalate to the National level through Kelly Lovely. I am sure there are some SIA branches and employers who do the above extremely well and look forward to hearing how these pockets of brilliance achieve this. having this applied across the board for the benefit of YSPs and industry would be a big step forward.
If you are keen to come to any of our NSW YSP sessions or other YSP sessions held nationally connect here via the SIA web page or the LinkedIn group.
You should also see some content on LinkedIn shortly from the night by other YSP’s, particularly what they experienced and took away from the night.
Reframe my Safety Brain 