In a bid to achieve zero harm, the University of the Witwatersrand’s (Wits’) Centre for Sustainability in Mining and Industry (CSMI) will be running a revised course for the first time this year that will equip leaders across industries to better influence the behaviour of everyone in their organisations.

The key is to equip leaders with a holistic picture of how their organisations’ culture and systems influence people’s behaviour, and to look beyond the ‘blame game’ when trying to prevent accidents or failures, says CSMI director Professor May Hermanus.

The course, titled ‘Occupational health and safety leadership and human factors’, will make high-level managers aware of the systemic failures within organisations that create the ‘error traps’ where accidents become inevitable.

“The human factors focus of the course looks at people in context – in and outside the workplace – and unpacks how human error is understood,” says Hermanus.

“We help course participants to understand what people contribute to organisations in terms of the daily innovations crucial to being productive. We all know that people are fallible, but we often do not recognise the inherent value of people’s daily decisions to deal with the unexpected; however, without this personal initiative, most organisations would grind to a halt.”

The problem occurs when these decisions go wrong – where misjudgements take place that lead to accidents.

“Many health and safety incidents are based on systemic failures that took place long before the particular accident that causes the harm,” says CSMI strategic associate and presenter of the course Professor Kobus de Jager, adding that the course was designed to guide participants through the interdependencies of their health and safety systems to provide a better understanding of cause and effect.

Part of the course aims to create an understanding of how leaders can anticipate and respond to problems.

“Human beings and systems are not perfect – they evolve and change as different pressures affect them and as processes and procedures change. The blaming response is often counterproductive if it does not help resolve the issue in the long term,” Hermanus says.

Underlying this approach is the need to create an enabling culture that will allow the organisation to evolve in the right direction – towards safer practices and attitudes.

“Culture describes the behaviour of people within an organisation and a constructive culture must be driven by leadership. The course guides participants on how to integrate organisational culture and systems to achieve the most positive behaviour,” De Jager adds.

The course recognises that most health and safety prac- titioners are focused on one of the many areas of specialisation, such as occupational hygiene, safety or even industrial relations. As such, they may not be equipped to take a broad and inclusive view of their role when they are promoted to a leadership position.

“When people become leaders, it is vital that they provide leader- ship for the holistic programme of that organisation,” Hermanus says.

“To do this effectively, they need to understand how the various elements fit together, for which they may not be formally prepared. This course fills that gap.”

She emphasises that leaders signal what is important in organisations and allocate resources accordingly. They also make decisions about which programmes and systems are going to be the most effective, so their role is pivotal in enabling health and safety.

“When assessing the outcomes of health and safety performance of different companies, it is those companies that have prioritised health and safety at a leadership level that are making strides. The leaders are able to shape the way the organisation operates, based on a strong foundation of good health and safety practice,” Hermanus explains.

The one-week course will be presented in September. It can also be incorporated into postgraduate qualifications offered by the Wits School of Mining Engineering.