Are you feeling unheard, like an outsider at your place of work? Then you are probably one of the OHS voices from the resistance.
If you are in OHS, being an outsider is part of the job
It’s primitive and it’s cultural. When OHS practitioners describe feeling unappreciated it is an outcome of the difference in social status between them and other groups, not just management, but sales or knowledge workers in the core business. If one is not a member of a social group it is hard to be heard by them. One of the reasons we don’t listen to members of another group is that we don’t think they understand the problem.
OD like OHS has a marginal role. We are peripheral experts waiting for the emergency that will bring us front and center. Occasionally there is a rebellion in the employee ranks and OD facilitates the conversations to get everyone back on the same page. For OHS it is a serious accident and the regulators put pressure on the company to improve their safety culture.
Some accept it as part of the job, others feel disrespected. Those who feel harmed by this dynamic should consider leaving the profession or seeking coaching/therapy. The choices are acceptance, leave the situation or change yourself. Changing yourself does not mean abandoning your values. It means learning to control your emotional reactions, setting boundaries and knowing when you cannot bring value to a situation.
Can you adopt the identify of an advocate, collaborator, helper?
These are not the only occupations where advisors feel unheard. Lippitt and Lippitt (1975) devised a descriptive model for organizational development consultants to address this issue. The roles are advocate, technical specialist, trainer or educator, collaborator (in problem-solving), alternative identifier, fact finder, process specialist, and reflector. They noted that these roles are not mutually exclusive. None of them are associated with power, but each has a sphere of authority that can be developed. Edgar Schein set the bar for the role of the consultant. He coined the phrase “How can I help?” There are so many wonderful quotes that it would be difficult to choose just one. So, I chose two.
Help in the broadest sense is, in fact, one of the most important currencies that flow between members of society because help is one of the main ways of expressing love and other caring emotions that humans express. Schein, 2009
Yet all my teaching and consulting experience has taught me that what builds a relationship, what solves problems, what moves things forward is asking the right questions. We do not think and talk about what we see; we see what we are able to think and talk about. Schein, 2013
It is difficult to work in a marginal capacity but it is important for the OHS adviser to be an outsider. It is commonly accepted that a consultant cannot consult to their own group because they will bring in all the same assumptions and beliefs. There could be little change. It is understandable that this role could be a lonely one. It can also create self-doubt.
Becoming an insider helps to alleviate this loneliness and anxiety. Staying removed and distant can also relieve the anxiety. Doing either, however, lessens the effectiveness of a consultant significantly. One way to alleviate the problems of loneliness and anxiety is to co-consult. If there is no one on the team to co-consult one can seek external networks and mentors.
Some professionals choose to be individual technical contributors to avoid some of the social conflict.
The technical side is very comfortable for many
The technical side is very comfortable for many and less “messy.” It’s much easier to be clinical and knowledgeable with technical facts. Developing emotional intelligence is not so accessible to everyone and seem essential for relationship. Relationship is hard work. Ray Master, VP of EHS
Those who try to avoid this ambiguity by going into technical consulting are misguided because having one’s advice accepted requires building relationships. Most consultants would blame people for a failed implementation of a new technology. They were so resistant! The truth is that they did not establish a relationship of trust and open communication.
Socio-Psychological Risks of working in OHS
Per one of the giants in social psychology, Erving Goffman, the biggest and most persistent risk that human beings face is interacting with others.
…individuals being anxious, fearful, role-playing, risk-avoiding and compulsively driven by the need to avoid embarrassment.” Engaging in impression management and being in a seemingly perpetual state of cold sweat, individuals make their way through life under a tenuous social contract whose major clause is a quid pro quo (viz, I won’t embarrass you as long as you don’t embarrass me) premised on mutual trust and respect…” Goffman concludes, ‘There is no interaction in which the participants do not take an appreciable chance of being slightly embarrassed or a slight chance of being deeply humiliated. Life may not be much of a gamble, but interaction is. (Trevino, 2003: 14)
The above applies to all and for OHS it has multiple layers. The present status of OHS professionals blocks them from becoming part of the core business and selling their ideas to improve safety. As a result, they must spend an inordinate amount of time building relationships across power divides. Unfortunately, that relationship building is mostly one way.
Those in power are often oblivious to the behind-the-scenes strategic and time-consuming tactics practitioners are forced to utilize. This time and energy may be well spent if it results in important protections for vulnerable employee groups. But imagine the increased performance if an equitable and inclusive relationship with decision makers were in place. It is entirely possible that this aspect of the job is a substantial contributor to burn out. All social interactions are risky but the level of risk rises when there is a possibility of rejection. Many times that rejection shows up as non-responsiveness. Yet if an incident takes place a practitioner can be blamed for not being influential enough to make management address the potential hazard.
Practitioners spend sleepless nights sometimes wondering if they will be fined for something the business failed to correct. It takes an inordinate amount of energy to keep offering ideas and recommendations for improvement despite not being heard. If the practitioner does not take care of their mental health it is easy to feel diminished and lacking in value.
It is ironic that ISO 45003 introduced psychosocial hazards under the purview of safety management systems when OHS practitioners face so many psychosocial challenges on the job. Perhaps the assignment will provide an opportunity to bring up some of those challenges in the context of overall employee well-being. Thus, it bears examining if the OHS practitioners’ proximity and perceived relationships of caring with people in the workplace make them good candidates to notice early signs of fatigue and anxiety. If the answer is yes, they need to be educated in the appropriate disciplines and those new responsibilities must be clarified. Since management is ultimately responsible for these issues it lies in their purview to provide this clarity.
