The #OSH road to the strategic management level

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strategic_management
Source: Wikipedia

My very last article in PrevenBlog -the corporate blog of the consultancy firm PrevenControl- is titled “De la prevención sostenible a la prevención estratégica” (i.e., “From the sustainable prevention to the strategic prevention”) [1] and is all about the proximity between the occupational safety and health (OSH) established as a part of a sustainability strategy, with respect to the incorporation of such OSH performance to the strategic management level of the organizations.

In practice, this close connection between sustainable prevention-strategic management is the last link of a very feasible development of the OSH duties in any organization. A path that, in the case of many enterprises is following this sequence, in brief:

  1. performance of the occupational safety and health (OSH) duties;
  2. incorporation or integration of OSH with the environment management (best known in the professional language as “EHS”, from “Environment, Health and Safety”)
  3. in practice, the EHS approach meets two in three key aspects of sustainable development of the organizations: the social and environmental aspects. In this way, to arrange with sustainability strategies or reports comes almost in a natural way;
  4. in this point, we do not perform the OSH and environment as typical departments, as the traditionally limited -and often forgotten- duties within the organizations. The sustainable development means pure survival of the enterprise, of the business. It´s all about strategic management, with all that implies. The fact that the OSH is incorporated to this approach are good news for all the parties involved, namely the businesses, the workers and the OSH professionals.

Many organizations and professionals are already taking an advantage of this approach. A very interesting scenario which will extend in the next years. Stay tuned!

References: [1] MAIRAL, David. 6 Jul 2015. “De la prevención sostenible a la prevención estratégica”. http://www.prevenblog.com/la-prevencion-sostenible-la-prevencion-estrategica/. Consulted 9 Jul 2015.