Occupational Safety and Health
Training of health and hygiene ambassadors of South Asian EBMO's
The COVID-19 pandemic strongly reminded us that practicing effective health and hygiene measures at the workplace is essential for preventing diseases and business continuation. Just as much as labour law and industrial relations are core competency areas of EBMOs, health and safety along with hygiene will necessarily be top concerns for all workplaces in future, irrespective of the type of industry. EBMOs need to build on this competency, which is very much currently limited to training programmes on OSH in factory - based environments.
The global survey on the impact of COVID on EBMOs released by the IOE and ILO/ACTEMP reveals that 6 out of 10 EBMOs consider developing capacities on safety and health as being a top priority. The findings also revealed the need for EBMOs to explore new services and review its business models. It states: “The crisis has brought into stark relief the fact that EBMOs need to review their fitness to serve new and emerging types of business, invest in people, develop new products and strategies to attract newly emerging businesses (e.g. platform economy, technology start-ups) and help traditional models to grow and compete.”
The ILO / ACTEMP ‘Safe return to Work Guide” focuses a lot on basic health and hygiene factors. It is necessary that EBMOs make use of it to reach out further to its members ensuring that what is set out therein is practiced at workplaces.
Against this background, it was thought that developing Health and Hygiene Ambassadors / Promoters that would visit work places to examine and offer regular advice would be a new service that EBMOs in South Asia could add to its portfolio. It will also enhance the relevance and ethos of the EBMO in the eyes of its members and other stakeholders.
However, before doing so ILO / ACTEMP conducted a survey among the EBMOs in South Asia testing the appetite for such training. All EBMOs responded positively and confirmed that they would like to develop a new service through “Health and Hygiene Ambassadors”.
Twenty three participants were nominated by EBMOs of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The training was conducted on line over a period of three weeks with work place visits included. As a result of the lock downs in most countries the information on the work place check lists were obtained by participants through different means which included on line contact with operating workplaces.
The second phase of the programme included interactive technical sessions. The programme concluded by all the participants drawing up an action plan to pilot and cascade the training through their respective EBMOs.
The global survey on the impact of COVID on EBMOs released by the IOE and ILO/ACTEMP reveals that 6 out of 10 EBMOs consider developing capacities on safety and health as being a top priority. The findings also revealed the need for EBMOs to explore new services and review its business models. It states: “The crisis has brought into stark relief the fact that EBMOs need to review their fitness to serve new and emerging types of business, invest in people, develop new products and strategies to attract newly emerging businesses (e.g. platform economy, technology start-ups) and help traditional models to grow and compete.”
The ILO / ACTEMP ‘Safe return to Work Guide” focuses a lot on basic health and hygiene factors. It is necessary that EBMOs make use of it to reach out further to its members ensuring that what is set out therein is practiced at workplaces.
Against this background, it was thought that developing Health and Hygiene Ambassadors / Promoters that would visit work places to examine and offer regular advice would be a new service that EBMOs in South Asia could add to its portfolio. It will also enhance the relevance and ethos of the EBMO in the eyes of its members and other stakeholders.
However, before doing so ILO / ACTEMP conducted a survey among the EBMOs in South Asia testing the appetite for such training. All EBMOs responded positively and confirmed that they would like to develop a new service through “Health and Hygiene Ambassadors”.
Twenty three participants were nominated by EBMOs of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The training was conducted on line over a period of three weeks with work place visits included. As a result of the lock downs in most countries the information on the work place check lists were obtained by participants through different means which included on line contact with operating workplaces.
The second phase of the programme included interactive technical sessions. The programme concluded by all the participants drawing up an action plan to pilot and cascade the training through their respective EBMOs.