Human Resources Risk (Staffing and WHS)
There is a pattern now where the student arrives early to class and talks to the professor. This week the student wanted to talk about human resources, particularly staffing and workplace health and safety risks. There is a reason for this, as the student has a part-time job in a gymnasium and has seen several poor decisions made by staff, and indeed one member of the public was injured due to the clear lack of staff training.
This Week’s Discussion
The professor was impressed with the student’s interest in risk and was happy about this week’s focus - especially as the professor has an interest in the staffing aspects of his own institution.
Risk
The professor started off by reiterating the substance of the International Risk Management Standard ISO 31000: 2018 and recited the risk mantra: “identify the risk, assess the risk, treat the risk and come back later and see if all is as expected”. The professor started to give examples of where things could go wrong in his institution and started to give examples. He made his examples as generic as possible – ensuring coverage of the risks associated with human resources.
Examples of Human Resource Risk
The professor gave the following examples -
- Inability to recruit and retain appropriately qualified staff;
- Recruited staff who do not who embody the organisation’s corporate values and mission;
- Loss of key staff;
- Staff not properly inducted in key areas such as workplace health and safety - also known as occupational health and safety.
Need for Qualified Staff
The professor commenced saying that it was vital not just to recruit appropriately qualified staff, but to ensure that they are retained. He continued stating that “qualified” had an holistic definition, in that it was insufficient to only have academic, professional or trade qualifications, but also qualifications in the form of the ability to work together with other staff were required. He then spoke about the “EQ and IQ” dilemma, where your EQ refers to your emotional abilities and social skills - including cognitive empathy, emotional regulation, and motivation; and conversely, IQ measures your cognitive and intellectual skills - like working memory, analytical thinking, and knowledge retention. He said that an employer should seek staff who have a reasonable degree of both.
Knowledge Management
He stated that a key business risk is ‘corporate knowledge’ walking out of the door, so some method of knowledge management was required.
Dealing with People
The professor concluded saying that dealing with people was never easy, but it is people who run organisations, and relationships were a key - and all staff, and not just management, should be aware of the risks associated with human resources.
Other Articles Worth Reading -
Academic and student matters risk - https://www.ubss.edu.au/article/academic-and-student-matters-risk/
External markets and associated risks – https://www.ubss.edu.au/article/external-markets-and-associated-risks/
Regulatory compliance – https://www.ubss.edu.au/article/regulatory-compliance/
Risk in education and training - https://www.ubss.edu.au/article/risk-in-education-and-training-a-starting-point/
Associate Professor Cyril Jankoff is Associate Dean, Scholarship at UBSS and a member of the GCA Compliance Directorate
