How scientific approaches to safety at work contributes to business value
The true cost of employing people boils down to safeguarding them from predictable injury (for example associated with musculoskeletal disorders, the main source of sickness absence), illness and death.
The most cost-effective way to control these costs is by applying relevant sciences, in particular psychology about human behaviour, what precedes it and the consequences that reinforce it.
The downside of neglecting due care for safety and health of employees, customers and the public is not limited to court awards, lawyers fees and insurance premiums, hefty though these can be. It actually also includes degraded use of time of managers and of employees as well as 'downtime' for unplanned maintenance.
When you safeguard employees and customers well, you do so by managing specific kinds of risks. Some of these risks differ according to the gender and age of employees, as well as forms of physical or psychological disability, - so you need to be inclusive. Since all of these risks have to take account of measurable differences between people, it is necessary to design work equipment, machines (including computers), tools and documents so that people can handle, see, read and hear accurately and safety, under pressure. That's where ergonomic science comes in.
Managing your safety with the nimimum of bureaucracy
While financial penalties for violations of tax matters can be much more swingeing (except perhaps for criminal prosecutions), penalties for safety violations can impair bids for contracts as well as relations with employees.
Where clients want practical help with compliance wtih safety regulations relevant to their firm, we are happy to accept an appointment as 'the competent person' appointed in accordance with the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, and its associated Approved Code of Practice.
The scope of this service package is tailored to the size and location of the organisation and is avaialble at basic, silver or gold service-level agreements.
Managing your business culture to support safety and health at work
Training managers to conduct Safe Performance Coaching is probably the single most powerful way of improving the safety culture of your orgasniastion because it makes it stratightforward for them to talk about safety in the same breath as other aspects of work performance
Regrettably, the necessity to set reasonable limits to behaviour and aspects of work environments in order to safeguard people is too often associated with negative, humdrum images. In reality, you can create the social environment about working safetly that you want to create. But it requuires the commitment to ensure that attention to the ABC of safe behaviour is clearly written into your safety policies, auditing procedures and your company communications.
How to use your communications to influence behaviour
When you invest time and other resources in communications, it pays to align them with the thinking style of your workface. To help in this respect, we use the Need for Closure Scale to provide feedback on these five dimensions of thinking:
- Preference for Order;
- Preference for Predictability;
- Decisiveness;
- Discomfort with Ambiguity;
- Closed Mindedness.
The better you understand how these dimensions are spread across the attitudes and beliefs of your mangers and their staff, the better you can match your safety policies and communications with them as well as with the work to be done and with your statutory responsibilities.
Measures for safe work environments
Increasingly over recent decades, evidence has accumulated of how people develop 'musculoskeletal injuries' to their upper limbs and shoulder areas as a consequence of the design of their work and work environments. Unless you start with reliable measurements of the individual and of the work he/he does, it's really a matter of random hit 'n' miss whether you get good-enough control over relevant aspects of their work settings and work processes.
Using videography, body maps, force gauges and other measures, we can gather the 'anthropomorphic' data you need to design work processes and use of equipment, machines, handtools and documents as safe ar reasonably practicable. And we also provide the associated management briefings and employee training necessary to support your investment in getting the match right beween people and their work environments.
Laws and regulations as boundary safeguards at work
The odds are that failing to comply with safety and fair discrimination legislation sooner or later results in litigation or other forms of loss and waste. In a civil claim, the Civil Proocedure Rules and your insurers are likely to press you to negotiate rather than spend a lot of time and money in a court appearance; to the extent that you have a robust defence, the lawyers acting for the claimant are obliged to advise him or her of the quality of their claim.
The practical points are that, on the one hand, good safety and diversity management greatly reduces the prospect of a valid claim against you. On the other hand, evidence of failing to comply with legal responsibilities is a sure way to lose money through expensive emergency treatment, compensation and to suffer incerased insurance premiums if not in court awards into the bargain.
