006 Diversity is your competitive advantage

DIVERSITY IS YOUR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

What’s the business case for engineering diversity into our teams?

What can HR do to promote diversity – gender, race, ethnicity, age or otherwise – into the workplace?

Do safety professionals need to learn ‘business speak’ to future-proof their role?

Welcome to episode 6 of the the Fit for Work Podcast. In this episode I speak with Kelly Lovely a woman who’s being a serious catalyst for change in the health and safety industry through inviting frank conversations around diversity. In this interview, Kelly challenges us to ask the question of what and why we’re doing what we’re doing and calls for a paradigm shift in the way we approach the role of the health and safety professional.

Kelly is an advocate of being more human, practising business speak and engineering diversity of thought into health and safety conversations. Kelly argues that safety is no longer an exact science and future-focused safety calls for soft skills, storytelling, progression of women in leadership and qualitative metrics, not just the quantitative stuff.

What authority does Kelly have to make such assertions? Quite a lot actually. Kelly has qualifications and experience in safety, business, occupational therapy and social psychology and is on the board of the Safety Institute of Australia and is a member of Women on Boards and the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

This episode covers topics that will tickle the appetite of not only health and safety professionals, but also HR and business leaders. Listen in as we unpack themes of workplace diversity, future-focused safety, collaboration and the need for reflection throughout your career journey. Oh, and prepare to be challenged as themes of this interview are sure to get you thinking and maybe even squirming in your seat.

Topics covered in the interview with Kelly:
FUTURE-FOCUSED SAFETY CALLS FOR…

• Qualitative measures – Safety is not just about processes and systems anymore but calls for soft skills, storytelling and a more humanistic approach. We need to turn the dial on safety metrics away from LTI data towards positive performance indicators, positive inputs and operational performance metrics that truly inform of best efforts towards continuous improvement. (1)
• Diversity – of thought, expertise, gender, age and ethnicity. Research tells us that companies with culturally diverse leaders are 35% more likely to outperform their competitors (2).

• Business Speak – A need for broader problem solving and commercial skills

• Inclusivity – A need to challenge the “boys club mentality” and ‘gain access’ to the other ‘sides’ of the talent pool. Male Champions of Change Network is one organisation advancing women in leadership. There is a strong business case for this with research showing that companies with more women in executive management financially outperform companies with no women in senior roles (3).

WAYS TO PROMOTE THE SHIFT…

• Fail-safe experiments – test new thinking and approaches via micro-experiments which can be supported by simple and easy to use metrics to prove a connection to an increase in actual performance. Then review, rinse and repeat, gradually increasing scope as confidence in the approach increases.
• Job Role Overhaul – Attract gender diversity via listing non-technical and soft skill requirements in job descriptions to engender confidence in women applying for health and safety roles. Also invite allied health professionals such as physios, occupational therapists and exercise physiologists into the safety space.
• Get a Mentor – a coach can give you the opportunity to be connected, and develop insights and understanding which can help you grow personally and professionally.  Get a mentor or BE one for someone else at a different stage of the journey. Kelly is inviting Australian Health and Safety Professionals with under 5 years of experience the opportunity to be mentored by her through the SIA Mentoring Program which you can learn more about here.
• Reflection – be reflective about your career direction and share the journey with fellow health and safety professionals. Join associations like the Safety Institute of Australia (SIA), Young Safety Professionals Network or Women in Safety.

Resources
KLRM: Kelly Lovely Risk Management
Ernst and Young Plus One
Safety Institute of Australia
Male Champions of Change Network
Jayne Hrdlicka CEO of Jetstar
Andrew Barrett Safety on Tap Podcast
Women in Safety

References

1. Disrupting Health and Safety Metrics, Kelly Lovely (2016) http://www.klrm.com.au/disrupting-health-safety-metrics/
2. Companies with Culturally Diverse Leaders are 35% More Likely to Outperform Competitors: How to Attract, Retain and Develop Culturally Diverse Talent (2016). https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/companies-culturally-diverse-leaders-35-more-likely-how-menzies?trk=hp-feed-article-title-share
3. Centre for Ethical Leadership (2012) Gender Equity Project. http://genderequity.ahri.com.au/docs/GEP-Building_a_Business_case_for_Diversity.pdf
4. Ernst and Young Plus One ‘The Future of Health and Safety: Moving Beyond Zero’ (2016)

Contact

Kelly Lovely Risk Management – www.klrm.com.au
Email: kelly.lovely@klrm.com.au
Twitter: @kellyklovely
LinkedIn: kellylovely

I’m so happy to be bringing you this thought leadership and I trust you got a lot of value out of todays episode with Kelly.

Until next time, continue being part of the solution in taking your workplace from good to great…

Continue the conversation at www.fitforworkaustralia.com.au, say hi on LinkedIn or flick us a personal note at sally@fitforworkaustralia.com.au.

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