Protect what matters - February 2024

CONCERNS REMAIN about how effectively health and safety professionals measure performance. Prioritising safety and talent cultivation are key strategies professionals employ to address this challenge.

With many new obstacles to overcome, it’s not surprising many respondents to the  Health & Safety Report, produced by RS last year, feel they have some way to go to become a mature function. Only 39 per cent ranked their business maturity level as high, compared to 54 per cent opting for medium, and seven per cent ranking a low-level of maturity.

The most common Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) strategies are accident management topping the list at 86 per cent, followed by systems (83%) and fire prevention and management (82%).

Three-quarters (75%) now have a mental health strategy. This reflects growing awareness and acceptance of mental health within EHS.

“I speak to a lot of business owners and HR professionals who want to protect their workforce, but don’t know how,” said Steven Harris, managing director of Integrity HSE.

“Your EHS professional can help them with the most efficient and effective means to address the issue: risk assessment. If your company has a mental health strategy which is not informed by a suitable risk assessment, then you are failing your stakeholders and often their families and communities too.”

Dr Karen McDonnell, occupational health and safety policy adviser at the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), describes health and safety as a continuum.

“Getting health and safety right requires a daily focus on embedding what works, irrespective of their size. It needs a consistent approach underpinned by the discipline of pausing, reflecting and re-setting around key topics which ensure workers return home safe,” she said.

Yet, there can be a hesitancy to share how well an organisation is doing, according to McDonnell.

“When something goes wrong, it changes the metric and the conversation about performance improvement. There is a lot to be said for having incremental improvement over time,” she added.

Larger companies are more likely to have a strategy around mental health, 83 per cent compared to 76 per cent for medium-sized, and 51 per cent for small businesses.

It’s a similar situation with governance. 76 per cent of larger businesses having a strategy, which contrasts with 58 per cent of medium-sized businesses and 59 per cent of small firms.

Made to measure

Ensuring performance is measured and monitored, typically through KPIs, is a vital part of health and safety. But the survey paints a mixed picture of what is being recorded and raises concerns over whether organisations are paying this enough attention.

Accident rates and near misses are the most common metrics, but only 73 per cent and 67 per cent of companies record them, respectively. Other measures include observations (59%), lost time accident rate (56%) and total incident frequency rate (56%).

John Barnacle-Bowd, vice president for Environment, Health & Safety at RS Group, believes organisations should measure a good deal of metrics.

“I like to measure all accidents, lost-time accidents and near-miss reporting, including hazard-spotting, unsafe acts, unsafe conditions and real near misses,” he said.

“Having effective programmes in reporting near misses helps to capture issues before they become your next accident. However, I would not specifically set a KPI or a number against near misses. This needs to grow naturally through education and awareness.”

Download the RS 2024 Health and Safety report 

John Barnacle-Bowd is vice president of global health, safety and environment at RS. For more information, visit https://uk.rs-online.com/web/