Realization is not enough to bring change; it requires constant efforts to build a roadmap for making transformative difference. Jillian Hamilton, the Founder and CEO of Safety Governance Institute has been one such change-maker.
Jillian is a known expert in Australia within the discipline of Safety Governance, serving on various Boards and regularly advising boards and senior leaders. As a global business leader, Jillian creates an environment for change and emergence of true safety governance. Her entire working career in Risk Management has been successful on one factor – the ability to influence purposely and consciously.
This process began when Jillian worked for a business where safety was not a cost of doing business; it was a true cost and noted as “the dark side”, quite literally as it was seen as a hindrance to being commercial savvy. During her five years in that business she realized the value of damage.
Realization that led to the Inception
Jillian realized that unless businesses could converse with their audience and decision makers via their language i.e. money, they were speaking in a language they did not understand.
Whilst primary safety ideals have been born from compassion or influence, she knew that this did not affect everyone and primarily the ones who made key business decisions.
The first evolution was to make safety a business case and commence a conversation about damage costs and the costs of damage via Risk Dollarisation® . The next conversation is about safety governance and safety getting its seat at the Board Room table globally to ensure less damage and increased quality of life. TM Safety-Trust & Safety Governance will be a feature of TM Non-Financial Risk. These are all words, phrases, aspects, and acumen that Jillian has brought to the business and safety tables. These are specific terms she has coined and used first for the industry.
Patenting the Idea as Doctorate
Jillian was able to export Risk Dollarisation. She chose to patent the idea as “her doctorate”. As a self-funded business owner, she could not afford the time to complete her doctorate at this stage but she had a unique and key idea that has emerged as brand new and in our safety world of ’file – save as’ she had to mark it as her own. She wanted to make sure that her theory of safety relativity was known, marked, and measured as she did it first!
This approach has had much challenge within the safety community as she did not do it under another university professor. This ruffled a few feathers, but also, she made a connection of safety, risk, and business.
A crevasse which has merely been crossed in the past and for most safety professionals without a business or financial acumen, this has really placed some confusion at varying levels.
“Safety for years has struggled with the key part required to sit at a Board Room Table with confidence due to lacking in influence – “influence” at board levels, primarily as safety professionals often fail to take a full risk view and have even lesser understanding of macro-economic and microeconomic factors and drivers which push and mould a business, which in turn means a safety professional speaks in a different language to business leaders and board people,” asserts Jillian.
The emergence of Jillian’s work has paved the way to export this process of non-financial risk management and applications in many nations of the world. Jillian is seen as a futurist as she is predicting outcomes and suggesting future workplace risk management.
A Leading Association
The Safety Governance Institute of Australia is the leading association for boards, chief executive officers, safety professionals, governance professionals, directors, and risk managers. Its membership is open to professionals with qualifications and experience in the field of safety governance. Being a member is the ideal way to advance in one’s career, expand their network and build on their skills. It provides the exclusive certificate in Safety Governance in Practice and is a business advocate for safety getting a seat at the boardroom table.
Within the SGI business is the newly formed “Global Framework Project Team” dedicated to development of a Global Framework of Safety Governance that will be accepted by businesses, nations, and regulators globally for the governance of non-financial risks.
Safety-TrustTM has become a vital key, as revisiting Maslow’s hierarchy of needs sees people focusing more on core lower-order needs for safety of service and product more than person ideations (self-actualization) of success, trends and excitement and adventure. Further to this end, Edelman found 90% of customers want to see brands “protect the well-being and financial security of their employees and their suppliers, even if it means suffering big financial losses until the pandemic ends” (Edelman & Reis 2020). SGI will assist companies to achieve these product goals and organizational survival of stakeholder capitalism and to drive this contribution throughout the global community.
Vital Attributes
According to Jillian, Consistency, Honesty, Ethics, and firm handling of finance are some of the vital attributes every business leader should possess. She has displayed these attributes through her work. In her career, she has set a path from the very beginning and that is, to be the absolute best person in every room she is present. “As a business owner in advisory and consultancy, it is critical for the success of my business that I be known as an expert, agent, a go-to, elite, guru and person who can provide straight, honest, ethical and practical advice to my customers,” says Jillian. She made sure that she knew her topics and only when she had had years of working in businesses of various sizes, did she think she was qualified enough to provide advice and consultation to other businesses. Her ethos and mindset have always been focused upon goal setting and directional ideation.
When she decides to go somewhere, she makes the proclamation, then she makes a plan, and then takes the desired steps to achieve it.
A Roadmap for Future
Jillian is committed to promoting safety governance and the safety governance institute. She will be releasing her book Safety Governance in Practice later this year. Safety governance is a new space which needs more attention that she will drive to reduce deaths globally. She realized that the quality and style of teaching in this area is some of the key reasons for errors in understanding and action in this area. She is committed to repairing this area of safety governance education gap and creating a framework and guideline for international use.
Jillian aspires to work with and influence the World Economic Forum in this area. She has created all the opportunities for herself and has done this intentionally and purposely.
She will continue to drive the path for safety governance globally and to help grow and develop board leaders, leadership and safety professionals to deliver safety trust at work and best outcomes for society by eliminating loss from work processes, no matter the stage of work.