When you’re starting to drown between employee concerns, payroll duties and helping your CEO -- HR Insider is there to help get the logistical work out of the way.
Need a policy because of a recent regulatory change? We’ve got it for you. Need some quick training on a specific HR topic? We’ve got it for you. HR Insider provides the resources you need to craft, implement and monitor policies with confidence. Our team of experts (which includes lawyers, analysts and HR professionals) keep track of complex legislation, pending changes, new interpretations and evolving case law to provide you with the policies and procedures to keep you ahead of problems. FIND OUT MORE...
New Framework Provides Clarity on Role of OHS Professionals

The International Network of Safety & Health Practitioner Organisations (INSHPO), which acts as a forum for international collaboration among professional organisations to improve safety and health at work, recently released the OHS Professional Capability Framework to provide greater clarity around the generalist OHS professional role.

Safety professionals can use the Framework:

  • As a reference for their professional practice;
  • To aid the develop’ment of continuing professional development plans; and
  • To assist in promoting the OHS professional role.

Employers can use it to help in develop’ing position descriptions for OHS roles and in recruiting OHS personnel.

The Framework explains that because only a few countries have a regulated requirement for practice, unqualified people are practicing in this area’which not only affects the quality of OHS advice, but also creates a negative perception of the subject, the role and the profes’sion. The lack of clarity around the OHS role has also negatively affected the perceived value of the OHS professional role in organisations.

Although there may be a range of OHS roles in the workplace, INSHPO has recognized the need to for’mally define the OHS role in two clear categories:

  • The OHS Practitioner, who’s vocationally-educated; and
  • The OHS Professional, who’s university-educated (or has attained a similar level of higher education).

This Framework focuses on the OHS Professional and has four components:

  1. Context
  2. Role of the OHS Professional
  3. Knowledge
  4. Skills.

An appendix to the Framework lists the kinds of hazards OHS Professionals can be expected to manage.