Employee profiling
May 1st 2009

Employing measures to identify a candidate's accident proneness, likelihood of being involved in a workrelated accident and probability of compliance to company policies and procedures can significantly reduce accidents at work, says Peter Humphreys

Businesses are under immense pressure to cut costs and justify expenditure in response to the current economic climate. As a result, employee health and safety training above the basic legal requirements is at risk as budgets are tightened.

Furthermore, many companies now have a reduced workforce, which sometimes causes an increased workload on those who remain.

However, employers must not think they can simply invest in 'processes' to tick the right boxes. Health and safety is an education process and time should be invested in training the right people to develop the right skills. Using assessments, such as psychometric tests, businesses can identify these people – i.e., those within the organisation who are most likely to adhere to health and safety procedures and will ensure the working environment is a safe one. More importantly, when used in the recruitment process, these candidates can actually be identified before they are hired.

SHL, the specialist in assessment solutions in the workplace, has an assessment which addresses safety in the workplace and the wider issue of employee dependability.

SHL's Dependability and Safety Instrument (DSI) uses a short questionnaire developed by occupational psychologists to provide an effective and objective measure of a candidate's accident proneness, likelihood of being involved in a work-related accident and probability of compliance to company policies and procedures.

DSI can slot in easily alongside any existing recruitment and development processes so health and safety managers can work with human resources to assess new recruits' or current employees' 'dependability' at any point in an individual's career.

The DSI assessment itself can be conducted by line managers, health and safety managers or human resources without the need for prior training and can be administered online, over the phone, or via a paper and pencil test. As with all SHL tests, it has been developed and tested extensively to ensure it is cheat-resistant.

The DSI tool was launched in 2006, with an upgraded version recently introduced. Since its launch, SHL has worked with organisations across a wide range of sectors that are well known to have significant safety concerns. This includes global transport, construction and manufacturing organisations.

One company which has successfully been using DSI is the North British Distillery, one of the largest Scotch grain whisky producers in Scotland. By the very nature of its manufacturing business, production and warehouse staff at the distillery are exposed to equipment that if used or operated incorrectly can pose serious risks to health and safety.

With safety at the heart of its core values the distillery wanted to increase the levels of safety focus within its workforce and identify any risk areas within its operation practices. The distillery implemented a behavioural safety programme into its organisation which included the use of DSI. Within the distillery's production, warehousing and engineering departments, all safety representatives, line managers and team leaders completed DSI.

Glyn Cave, Employee Development Manager, North British Distillery said, "We couldn't believe how something so quick and easy to implement and complete could be so useful. The results have identified a clear correlation between those employees who scored below average in the test and their safety record to date. Feeding back the results of DSI allowed us to raise awareness around safety in an objective and consistent way.

As a result additional safety training has been given to staff where needed and in some cases operation teams have been 'swapped around' to ensure that they are balanced to minimise risk.

"Importantly, the production staff are now reporting higher numbers of 'near miss' incidents and learning from these," continues Glyn. "As a result we have less time lost through accidents." Following this successful implementation, DSI has been integrated into the distillery's recruitment and selection processes and ongoing internal safety audit programme.

Businesses may be spending cautiously at the moment, but investing in the right audit processes and more importantly, the right people will absolutely help to save money in the long run. With stiff new penalties in place, now is not the time to make cut-backs that will not only put companies, but also employees, at risk.