“Our wellbeing at work is important”

Susanna Holm Nielsen welcomed me to her small office in the November-gray office buildings on Katrinebjergvej, which has been home to her and her colleagues at Nat-Tech finance since August. She is a business controller at the unit, and she also serves as occupational health and safety representative, an elected position. 

When asked what her thoughts were before standing for election, she smiled and replied immediately: “I didn’t really think about it! My colleagues told me that it was I was already doing on a daily basis. In other words, caring about my colleagues and giving them support if I could see that someone was under pressure or having a hard time. That’s been my primary focus ever since: Spotting how my colleagues are doing.”

Together with her eight fellow occupational health and safety representatives at the Nat-Tech administrative centre, she represents administrative staff in Aarhus, Kalø and Silkeborg in the two faculties’ shared central administration. 

Focus on both physical and psychological work environment

As occupational health and safety representative, Susanna Holm Nielsen works with many different topics and cases. From informing her colleagues when new windows are put in their building to contributing to the development of workplace culture and a sense of community at Aarhus University. She strongly believes that improving the work environment is best done on a running basis. She recommends that employees and management deal with physical and psychological issues when they develop - instead of waiting for the next WPA. 

From the outset, she has had a special focus on the psychological work environment in her work as a occupational health and safety representative. So she is very conscious of the importance of keeping an eye on how her colleagues feel: "If I observe that colleagues are shutting themselves in their office, having many days off, or if I can see that they’re acting differently, then I'll go in and ask if they’re okay. And I always let them know it’s ok to throw me out if they don't want to talk. My colleagues also know that if there is something they want to talk to me about, I’m always ready to listen."

This makes it possible to discuss work environment issues as they arise – which often helps resolve them. In other contexts, the management gets involved. In particular, this role as a link between employee and management is important to her role as occupational health and safety rep, and it’s something she learns a lot from.

Managers and collaboration can raise awareness of the occupational health and safety organisation

In addition to her role as occupational health and safety representative at Nat-Tech, Susanna Holm Nielsen also has a larger mission that encompasses all levels of the organisation. She wants to raise awareness of the occupational health and safety organisation.

And she works to promote this in her capacity as vice-chair of her local occupational health and safety committee (LAMU) and the faculties' occupational health and safety committees (FAMU) at Nat and Tech. She also sits on the administration’s occupational health and safety committee (AAMU) and is vice-chair of the main occupational health and safety committee (HAMU). 

When she was elected as an occupational health and safety representative in 2012, the election was uncontested.

"It’s a problem that the occupational health and safety organisation is not better known among employees at AU. For example, we can see that we still have very few contested elections for these positions. So I would like to make the organisation and US representatives more visible,” she said. 

In this connection, she pointed to the importance of managers drawing the attention of employees to the occupational health and safety organisation and not least the local representatives. In addition, she is trying to strengthen cross-university collaboration in the occupational health and safety organisation at AU in order to create greater focus on it. 

She is pleased that, after several years of work to raise awareness, it now seems that both management and employees now have a greater focus on the occupational health and safety organisation. She hopes that this will be reflected in more contested elections in the January occupational health and safety representative elections. 

Encourages colleagues to stand for election

Without hesitation, Susanna Holm Nielsen encourages her AU colleagues to stand for the upcoming election – but also to think about the role: "You should only stand for election if you want to get involved. It requires that you spend time on it and get involved in the work. If you do that, you can get a lot out of it." 

To the final question of what motivates her in her duties as occupational health and safety representative, she replied: "First and foremost, making a contribution to our wellbeing at work. It’s also really exciting and motivating both at on personal and professional level to work on finding solutions to the problems and challenges that arise in relation to the work environment." 

The elections for the occupational health and safety organisation will take place in January 2020. The nomination period starts in December. 

Are you thinking about standing as a occupational health and safety representative?

• Read more here. (Note: You must be logged onto an AU network or VPN in order to access the page) 

Facts about the occupational health and safety representative role at AU

• Occupational health and safety representatives are elected for a three-year period
• The reps are offered competency development to prepare them to perform their role
• Here are some of the areas reps work with:
  • THE WPA An occupational health and safety representative helps prepare, implement and follow up on the WPA. This is laid down in the Danish working Environment Authority's rules. Work on the psychological work environment will often take place in collaboration with representatives of the Liaison Committee.
  • ‘Temperature Gauge’ Occupational health and safety reps are proactive in relation to the psychological and physical work environment. This can help management identify areas in which the work environment can be improved. As employee-elected representatives, they may pass on information from units and employees who are experiencing challenges in relation to the work environment and contribute to finding solutions.
  • Help and support for colleagues Anyone can turn to an occupational health and safety representative for help. This may be in connection with challenges in the working environment, for example, but also in relation to long-term absence/illness or in other difficult situations in which AMR can be a support for the affected colleague.
  • Moving, renovations, work-related accidents and evacuation drills are other areas that occupational health and safety representatives are involved in.

About the series:

In this series of articles, University Director Arnold Boon highlights important operational tasks being carried out in various corners of the administration. The aim of the series is to give administrative employees insight into what kinds of task administrative employees perform, and to highlight some of the tasks that are performed behind the scenes. This article is a special edition in connection with the occupational health and safety organisation elections at AU.

More information: