MBA School Teaching Workplace Safety as "Golden Asset"

Teaching about workplace health and safety at the Business Graduate School level... now there's a GREAT idea!!

That's exactly what  a new partnership between the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), and the Williams College of Business at Xavier University in Cincinnati, is achieving.

Together they are developing a course for a Masters of Business Administration students. The course -- The Business Value of Safety and Health -- will address how companies can use workplace health and safety improvements for operations management and long-term planning, The course begins in spring 2009.

"Our goal is to train students to view health and safety as business investments and to demonstrate the return on investment," says  Raghu Tadepalli, dean of the Graduate School of Business at Xavier. "

NIOSH Acting Director, Christine M. Branche, says they are presenting "the message that a safe and healthy workplace is a golden asset for a company in today's increasingly competitive marketplace."

Needed: More 'Safety Champion' Employers

The reason I am so cranked about this project is that I've believed for a long time that one of the most effective ways to change the high incident of workplace accidents and deaths is through employers - not just trying to change the behavior of employees.

That's why I focus so much on developing and promoting Safety Champions - those companies who really walk the walk of investing in occupational health and safety....

I take these Champions with me to my speaking engagements, so that high school and college students can see what REAL leaders look like.

I speak to the workforces of these Safety Champions - their entire staff, from C-level to the factory floor.

I include these Safety Champions in my organization's Annual Simulcast event, bringing them much-deserved attention from the media and communities where we broadcast/present.

If we don't have enough Safety Champions  - and we don't - one way to get them is to grow them at the undergrad and MBA level. So, way to go, Xavier University and NIOSH in the United States...

What college or university will step up to the plate to do the same in Canada??