Are you interested in helping to make the work environment at AU even better? And can you see yourself representing staff interests in relation to work environment issues and contributing to the strategic development of AU as a workplace in dialogue with management – while serving as a positive role model for your colleagues? Then this is your chance: occupational health and safety rep elections are coming up in late autumn.
As an occupational health and safety representative, you are the voice of your colleagues: your role is to make sure that their interests and perspectives help shape and and inform initiatives to improve the work environment at AU. This means that you need to have a strong interest in these questions, an ear to the ground in relation to your colleagues and a good understanding of their concerns and desires with respect to their work environment.
As an occupational health and safety representative, you have an influence on the development of AU as a workplace, and you will develop a wide network of contacts at the university, which will give you both insight and influence as well as contributing to your own professional and personal development. In short, serving as an occupational health and safety representative at Aarhus University is a unique opportunity to make a positive difference for your colleagues, for AU and for yourself.
As an occupational health and safety representative, you play an important role in the day-to-day efforts to improve the work environment, and your primary task is to serve as a liaison between and managers in relation to occupational health and safety issues and policies. In practice, this means communicating important information about working conditions that helps to create a good work environment.
Some of the important tasks that occupational health and safety representatives perform in collaboration with management are:
All members of staff who have worked at AU for at least nine months are eligible for election as occupational health and safety representatives. All you have to do is stand for election in the area where you work which is covered by the occupational health and safety group – such as part of a department/school.
Interested staff can announce their candidacy in the period 27 November - 7 December 2023. See the timeline for the election here
Occupational health and safety representatives at AU are elected to three-year terms (the upcoming term is 1 March 2024 – 28 February 2027). This three-year term allows the members of the different occupational health and safety groups to develop strong, productive working relationships, as well as the initiating and implementing both preventive and proactive health and safety-related measures. You will work with the manager in your occupational health and safety group to plan your tasks and responsibilities as representative.
If you’d like to know more about what your local occupational health and safety group does, please contact your current occupational health and safety representative or read more on the election page and read the description of the function. There’s a need for a lot of occupational health and safety representatives – both staff who have a lot of experience at AU and staff who are new on the job. We encourage you to talk to your colleagues about their concerns and visions in relation to their professional satisfaction and wellbeing – and not least what they expect of their occupational health and safety representative.