HSE Community Insights - Jane Moss
We spoke with Jane Moss, Group HSE Director at Boral to gain insights into Jane’s HSE journey to date, what opportunities the sector are faced with and advice on future HSE capability requirements.
What do you think the 3 biggest opportunities that the HSE profession are faced with in the constantly changing world of work?
“The first opportunity I think is around economics and organisational culture shifts that will in-turn drive the need to do safety well. Efficiency and effectiveness need to be key, and we need to be careful not to lose sight of this. I think that as organisational culture shifts, we will become more comfortable and honest to really expose what's not working and fix it”.
“The second is around greater engagement with our workforce to foster and generate new ideas. We are rapidly moving away from the command and control approach and this shift is resulting in ‘employee consultation to employee participation’ when it comes to business issues and decision making”.
“Lastly, it’s around digital capability, learning how to access and work with critical information and data. As technology becomes more affordable (such as robotics), how do we interact and work with these new platforms? Technology will also provide us with instant access to key information where it's needed and when, and we can communicate ideas and solutions much more quickly on a local and regional level”.
What are the top 3 capabilities required in your view for success in the future?
“Developing EQ. I come from a very industrial background, so a lot of the leaders I’ve worked with traditionally have been very process and numbers driven. That’s definitely needed, however, it’s critical to develop that EQ piece if we want to tap into and get more out of our workforce”.
“Another from a capability point of view is being comfortable with ambiguity and things that may appear to be counterintuitive. The pace of change is so fast, if we're not comfortable with not knowing everything and the fact that things will soon be completely different to what we are used too, it will become a real struggle for anybody in business. The key will be around going with it and making sure that if you fail, fail fast and move on”.
“Finally I think it’s about creative thinking. it's about developing the capacity to think creatively, looking at things through different perspectives and engaging with diversity. Creative thinking can only happen when trust and transparency are present. If people don’t feel trust, they are unable to be creative. When it comes to safety, there's still fear, this is holding people back. If they don’t feel safe to share ideas and collaborate, this will inhibit the sector from moving forward”.
Looking back over your career, if you could change one thing, what would that be?
“I've done lots of different roles in different businesses, and I've enjoyed the variety, however, when I first came out of my graduate program and started working in the mines, a short time after I was made redundant. An opportunity opened for me to work in Antarctica, which at the time seemed a bit too much. I was worried about being away from everybody for three months and feeling disconnected, so I didn't pursue it. It was one of those opportunities that I regret not taking, looking back now I know it would have been a life changing experience and I wish I had been brave enough to go.”
“Since then I have used that situation as a benchmark to push myself and take a more fearless approach to opportunities that come my way”.
What is innovative about the organisation you are working for?
“The organisation has an understanding that the foundation to improving health and safety is trust and transparency. There is an emerging appreciation that humans are humans and we need to work with them, not against them which I feel a lot of organisations are still struggling with”.
“Until we can deal with some of the current culture killers around health and safety, we won’t get better at it, people won't be honest about where they've made mistakes for fear of retribution and violations”.
Other articles you might be interested in
