By NZISM Secretary
11/11/2020
Kia ora members and supporters: NZISM, on behalf of its members, welcomes Michael Wood as the new Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety. As we have done previously we will be offering Michael NZISM honorary membership for his Ministerial term and we look forward to working with him to influence better health and safety outcomes at work. We will be following with interest the decisions he makes early on, with a hope that any potential review of the HSWA further strengthens the role that health and safety practitioners and professionals play in keeping workers safe.
Last week you may have received confirmation of the change to our accreditation levels. We heard the call from our members and reviewed the naming conventions to better reflect the breadth and depth of experience that our accredited members bring to their roles. I hope you have had the chance to update your email signatures and enjoy the new-found status of NZISM Practitioner, NZISM Professional or NZISM Certified Professional.
Thank you to those of you who completed our annual member survey. This year we had a staggering 38% response rate, which is the highest response ever achieved. It means that we are able to gather statistically significant feedback from you on what you value and want from your membership, enabling us to focus our energy where it matters most. We will be collating responses over the next few weeks to help us prepare our plans for 2021 and we will share the findings with you.
Many of you have already utilised the online myCPD tool, undertaken the knowledge self-assessment, and hopefully developed plans to meet your knowledge gaps. We are now preparing the second assessment, which is skill based, to sit alongside the knowledge self-assessment. These tools help you identify where you are excelling and where you need to focus your development, for each level of the NZISM Accreditation Programme. This detail is important to help us, as an organisation, identify the specific knowledge and skills required of our profession. It also enables external agencies and organisations to better understand how they can grow and develop their OHS talent. We will also be using these frameworks to help tertiary providers understand the knowledge requirements of the profession, providing a clear framework for micro-learning opportunities and ensuring their courses meet our professional expectations.
I hope you all have a safe and productive week.
Ngā mihi
Selena Armstrong
CEO
Thank you for joining the Women in Safety Excellence (WISE) network.
We hold various online and face-to-face events throughout the year and if one occurs near you, we would love to meet you in person.
LinkedIn - Please make sure you join our LinkedIn group to stay connected and on top of our planned webinars and events. We encourage you to post anything in the WISE group page that you think other network members would find useful or inspiring. Please don't be shy. The more we reach out, the more we connect with each other, and the more we can help each other on our journeys.
We might send you the occasional email but our web page on the NZISM website is always the best place to go for an overview of what's coming up in the WISE calendar.
Best wishes,
Margaret van Schaik
WISE Chair