Digital Excellence 2024 Interview: James Murphy, Director, Institution of Occupational Safety and Health
1. Please can you tell us a bit about your association and your role there?
IOSH (the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health) is the Chartered professional body and charity with over 50,000 safety and health professionals worldwide.
Put simply, IOSH believes that everyone should be safe from harm at their place of work. In the past this has tended to focus on physical safety – and this is still a huge concern for working people around the world. But increasingly the focus is expanding into areas such as psychological safety, wellbeing and mental health. It’s this fundamentally positive sense of purpose that drew me to IOSH and inspires me to promote the profession as an enabler of safe and healthy practices globally.
My role at IOSH is Director of Marketing Communications and Policy. I lead a team of 40 professionals dedicated to developing our policy demands and positions, building relationships with other bodies, designing our presence at major expos, working with brand ambassadors, attracting and retaining members, and communicating with a wide range of audiences – primarily digitally.
I’ve been with IOSH for one year, but have worked with many professional bodies and membership organisations over the last 20 years. I’m also proud to be a trustee for the Icon (the Institute of Conservation).
2. What do you see as the key challenges for associations with digital in 2024 and beyond?
It’s obvious to refer immediately to AI – as a challenge in terms of its enormous growing impact on the professional landscape – and hence the relevance of associations as we’ve traditionally known and valued them. But, there are already some incredible upsides for association professionals that we’re (mostly) barely getting started with.
However, for many associations the common challenges will still lie in the drive to greatly simplify business models that have developed over many years and often rely on tiers of governance. Membership organisations continue to be byzantine in their processes, language, membership products and requirements. Increasingly, the value for our members is will be less about what ‘stuff’ our associations can provide to justify a subscription, and much more about the opportunities that spring from being part of a community for peer-to-peer interaction and learning – as and when needed throughout non-linear careers. Digital enables associations to rethink what they offer and what they are.
3. Could you tell us what you are looking forward to in the digital strategy stream, and the conference as a whole?
The digital strategy stream – like the conference as a whole – is a glorious mixed bag of short, punchy, rapid-fire real-life tales delivered by those peers who have been central to the teams delivering them. This for me is its real interest. I love the sharing of best practices, the open and honest sharing of lessons learned. I love the ability to ‘borrow’ great ideas from the big organisations with deep pockets but tricky bureaucracy, by the more nimble but cash-strapped smaller organisations. And conversely, how the big ‘borrow’ from the agility of the small. There’s reassurance constantly – ‘we’ve done that!’; ‘gosh, we dodged a bullet there!’ And there’s inspiration – ‘tomorrow, we’re trying that!’
4. Why do you feel it’s important for association and membership professionals to attend Digital Excellence 2024 this year?
I’m an enormous advocate for the membership sector. And this will be my fourth Digital Excellence conference, I think!
I’ve been a Chair previously, a speaker and a delegate. Memberwise provide a really valuable safe space for membership professionals to come together and learn from each other. There’s so much knowledge in one place! I always leave with a list of things to try, avoid, read, do, and with many new connections and with old connections, re-connected!
The Membership Sector’s Sell-Out Annual Digital Focused Best Practice Conference
James Murphy Director of Marketing Communications and Policy, Institution of Occupational Safety and Health
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