The evolution of health and safety

BACK IN 2012, I went for a job interview (I won’t say where!) and I vividly remember the CEO asking me why somebody like me wanted to be in health and safety, because I had “too much energy and life”. Why would I want to do such a “boring” job? If only he knew…

I found myself thinking back to that job interview the other day while reading about the 50th anniversary of the pivotal Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. During those five decades, safety and health risk has gone from something that really was not considered, through an era of form-filling and box-ticking, and is now proudly recognised as an integral part of everything we do in organisations – and not remotely boring! Although you would be perhaps surprised to know that the Act itself has not fundamentally changed during that time… which perhaps goes to show that it was a robust piece of legislation, and how much it was needed when it was introduced. It is now seen as a successful piece of legislation that ushered in an era of reduced workplace accidents and injuries.

What was life like in 1974?

Back in 1974 the world was a very different place – and I don’t just mean the flared trousers our parents used to wear! I actually believe that we were much more naïve as a nation – perhaps even more so as a global population. Many of the ways we interacted with our fellow humans would now raise red flags (in more ways than one). We’re certainly much more aware these days of the risks present in our everyday lives and the potential for the consequences to come to fruition.

Some of us will remember hearing about the Aberfan disaster, which occurred in 1966 – 116 children and 28 adults were killed when a 34m-high colliery spoil tip, saturated with rainwater, suddenly slid downhill into the village of Aberfan, engulfing Pantglas Junior School and a row of houses. This was a major catalyst for expanding health and safety laws to protect members of the public as well as employees. Tragically, the village lost a generation in that incident, and the eyes of the nation and the world turned to see how the UK could and would improve attitudes and laws towards managing risk within workplaces, not only for employees but also for anyone else who could be affected by workplace activities.  There were many lessons learned from the disaster, one of which being that we, as human beings, are often poorly armed to make consistent decisions about the nature and extent of risk, especially when trying to predict the outcome of potentially catastrophic events.

The 1974 Act was designed to secure the health, safety and welfare of workers, but also other people, protecting them from risks that they might encounter as a member of the public, or even as a contractor. The Act also invokes a duty of care, setting out what is expected of employers in terms of how to store and handle potentially dangerous items, essential maintenance to machinery and the workplace, and how they should communicate with and train employees to keep everyone safe – making failure in each case a criminal offence.

The Act had a massive impact on workplace health and safety, although in its early years there were not as many successful prosecutions as we see today. However, there were always areas in which the 1974 legislation did not go far enough to protect people, and with this in mind, on 1 October 1989, the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations (COSHH) came into force, which required employers to protect staff and members of the public from hazardous substances. The 1974 Act was always designed as an enabling act, allowing the variety and the detailed nature of some of the subsequent regulations and orders that have followed since its original introduction.

Talking about risk for the first time

From the research and the data we have, it appears that the first 25 years of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act saw the legislation finding its feet; what ultimately took safety and health risk management  to the next level was the introduction of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations in 1999. These regulations were pivotal in changing collective organisational mindsets around the importance of general risk assessments. Before this, the concept of a general risk assessment was not consistently applied and – despite the introduction of the health and safety regulations “Six Pack” that came into effect following EU Legislation as far back as 1993 – the management of task or area risks was not assessed well or collectively thought through (except by a few wise organisations).

When the regulations were introduced, I was working alongside my father within a reactive maintenance company we operated. We had been used to working with specific regulations, such as the Manual Handling Operations Regulations, but we hadn’t really discussed  the concept of general risk assessments prior to the introduction of the Management Regulations and my father’s thoughts on risk management, were, understandably different from mine. Our language was changing – we were starting to evolve, thinking more about the differences between risk and hazards. Additionally, some organisations like ours were hiring dedicated health and safety managers – which was revolutionary. 

Ah yes, those health and safety managers… 25 years ago, you’d probably not have considered being a health and safety professional at the start of your career. Many companies had the “oh, they are a safe pair of hands, stick them in health and safety” attitude, which went a long way towards creating the misguided perception that health and safety was a boring, reactive, a tick-box exercise, a job that would see you through to retirement. I always associate that era with tweed-jacketed men, with patches on their elbows being rushed in when things went wrong. It certainly was not seen as a career for a woman – which is why I’m so passionate today about reframing the narrative and creating a positive image for the health and safety profession. 

One of the most interesting things for me as an industry professional is seeing how health and safety as a career has evolved. You can now do a degree in health and safety. This did not exist in the same way 25 years ago. The career is seen as a valuable one, integrated into the ethos of organisations. People in the profession are more dynamic, creative and vibrant than ever. Salaries have grown too.

There has also been another significant change. When I first started delivering training, it was always a surprise to see another woman in the room, and we always made a joke of it. Over the past decade – particularly the past five years – there’s been a huge increase in the number of women becoming health and safety professionals, which I can only see as a positive step forward, bringing a wider range of skills and diversity of thought to our beloved industry.

And now, the health bit

Something else that really stands out for me within the evolution of the Act is the recognition of the “health” aspect of health and safety. Hazardous substances and thinking about the impact of noise and vibration were undoubtedly thought of as “health” hazards for many years, but they’re only small elements of a wider health agenda. For years, my colleagues and I have tried to navigate a path to get organisations to approach health and safety holistically, to address areas of physical and mental health (such as nutrition, physical movement and sleep), and to take into account employees’ life stages. This has certainly moved forward in ways that even only 10 years ago would have been unimaginable, and I’m so proud of the profession for having the tenacity to drive the agenda. The pandemic, no doubt, played a part in speeding up this process, as people were starkly faced with their own mortality.

And at last, more organisations are recognising that managing health and safety risk is part of their necessary DNA – not just a “nice to have” if we are doing well commercially. Senior management teams care more about the people who work for them than ever, despite the pressures placed upon them. There’s greater investment in management and leadership training, the psychology and practicalities of what it means to be a good health and safety leader are frequently discussed, and organisations are really beginning to see the value of brilliant leadership. 

However, ways to describe health and safety professionals within large organisations are still far from uniform. When I think back to the number of job titles I’ve had – take your pick from Head of Health and Safety to Health and Safety manager, to Health and Safety adviser, to Quality, Safety, Health and Environment advise – it reminds me how much perceptions of health and safety, and the weight given to the role, have shifted and changed. Even now, the pay difference between two roles in different organisations that have the same job title can be vast.

Companies will always need someone who deals with risk. These days, it’s not uncommon to see a “Health, Safety and Wellbeing Director”, but usually the wellbeing elements of this still find their way to being labelled under a human resources or people function. Maybe the next evolution will be more organisations appointing risk managers, although risk manager is actually a more of an overarching role that not only requires an understanding of the challenges around engineering, but also human physiology, along with myriad other things. The future role we take (whatever it will be called), will of course organically develop and change, but what’s important is that health and safety is no longer perceived as a token job, created to tick a box. In certain countries, organisations must have a legally appointed health and safety manager who takes on legislative duties. We may need to consider this in the United Kingdom, where organisations routinely fail to learn from past incidents and do not develop their own organisational memory.

What does the future hold?

The key legacy of the groundbreaking Health and Safety at Work etc Act is that we now have far better management of risk, more accountability for organisations to manage the risk that they create and much greater accountability. We have a profession of well-educated, caring and tenacious individuals who will stop at nothing to make the world of work a safer and healthier place to be. But where does our profession go from here? The world is full of conflicts and challenges: environmental, social and financial. How is the health and safety profession reacting? I worry sometimes that we’ve become self-obsessed: if we become too focused on laying down the law (“You can’t do this!” “Don’t do that!”) we’ll end up overlooking the bigger picture. It’s time for us to stop sweating the small stuff.

I’d like to see the profession simplify itself. – to go back to basics.  I’ve seen many organisations that have thousands of risk assessments, or 45-page colour-coded documents – but they don’t need all these to be able to manage risk effectively. Managing risk is simple: work out what your risks are, identify the greatest risks (and immediate danger), and deal with them first. The overcomplication of risk management could be the downfall of the profession.

I’m obviously thrilled that organisations now understand the importance of considering and addressing health and wellbeing issues, but we must also be mindful not to go too far in certain areas without there being sufficient scientific evidence of effectiveness. Against the backdrop of a changing planet and the proliferation of health issues around the world, we need to perhaps reconsider our current tendency to overtrain or place the wrong focus on certain areas, particularly in areas such as mental health. We all have to remember that an evidence-based approach is always the best, most logical course of action. Managing risk doesn’t mean wrapping people in cotton wool and blinding them to the realities of human interactions within the workplace. For example, some organisations will no doubt have a higher mental health risk than others, but let’s also look at the demographic of the employees. We should always manage risk in the most proactive way we can, not apply sticking plasters to a problem that already exists.

A massive challenge for safety and health in the future is getting people away from the fact that they think everything they read online is true. It’s great that we have all this information at our fingertips, but how do we educate our teams to be smart? To filter information and rationalise. Reminding them to ask the question; who’s manipulating that information, and for what end? As risk managers, we need to be able to give people the tools to develop critical thinking, to build resilience, to analyse and to understand natural human biases and our innate ability to use mental shortcuts. While it is easier than ever to find out information, it is also easier to create our own mirrors and echo chambers. This is definitely a risk to consider, both now and in the future.  

Thanks to the 1974 Act, today we recognise health and safety as a key element of workplace life, and as a profession, too. We have a robust framework that has developed and matured in many ways, and we have seen a significant reduction in workplace accidents and incidents. But it is now time for us to take the next steps: to utilise emerging technology, while understanding its limits and challenges to build a positive, holistic health and safety culture within each and every organisation from inception, and connect this with wider issues such as the future of our planet (and what this means for the safety and health of human beings moving forward). Managing risk will always be vital to our physical and mental wellbeing, and at the end of the day, that’s why I – and so many like me – do our jobs: we want to keep people alive, in the condition that they were in before they went to work, and with assured health – for a long and happy life.

Carla Crocombe is founder and managing director of Safety Rocks. For more information, visit www.safetyrocks.co.uk