Looking after your biggest asset - New tool to improve worker safety

Strong health and safety culture is vital for business success

Staying safe at work may not be at the forefront of every employee's mind as they come back from their Christmas break but, with more than 130,000 reported workplace incidents in 2008/9, 180 deaths and almost 5 million working days lost to associated injuries, the issue remains at the top of the agenda for employers. Now scientists from the Health and Safety Laboratory, which houses the UK's largest multi-disciplinary team of occupational safety experts, have unveiled a new weapon in the battle against injuries at work.

The HSL Safety Climate Tool (SCT) is a 40 question survey enabling employers to assess and address health and safety issues in the workplace. The streamlined package includes a series of questions which challenge both employers and employees to question their attitude towards health and safety and allows the identification of particular areas of concern.

The precursor to the HSL SCT was originally launched in 1997 by the Health & Safety Executive and quickly became a byword for best practice in companies spanning a vast range of industry sectors. More than 800 health and safety managers employed the tool first time around, including United Biscuits - maker of the McVities, Hula Hoops and Jacob's brands.

Chris Shepherdson, health, safety and environment manager for United Biscuits, credits the SCT for a drop in major incidents and a reduction in lost hours. He said: "Since we've started using the tool we've had a 36 per cent drop in RIDDOR and lost time accidents, a 50 per cent drop in minor accidents, lost hours are down by 75 per cent and near-miss reporting is up by 75 per cent.

"The results of the survey are very interesting, offering a useful insight into the safety culture of employees, and demonstrating how a person's perception is in fact their own reality. One of the key findings was that 80 per cent of staff said they worked safely most of the time, but 80 per cent also believed that other people worked unsafely. That's like the 'everyone else is a bad driver but me' syndrome !

"The Safety Climate Tool is user-friendly and inexpensive, allowing us to influence the behaviour of our employees across the board. By encouraging greater awareness and understanding of existing working practices within a health and safety 'best practice' framework, the tool has quickly become a vital part of our business, as well as our health and safety, strategy."

The Olympic Delivery Authority uses a bespoke version of the newly developed package and has included the SCT as one of the requirements for all subcontractors in order to minimise risk to workers on site. Car manufacturer Ford has also trialled the latest version to evaluate the safety culture among workers at its Southampton plant.

Rob Ardley, human resources manager at Ford Southampton, approached HSL to help identify priorities in order to address health and safety perceptions, issues and concerns.

He said: "We have a very good safety record at Ford. However, it's easy to get complacent. This survey allowed us to get a level of insight and understanding not previously available. In particular, we started to get to know how our people 'feel' about our commitment to safety and build a response that will further improve our safety record."

The easily accessible software package has been developed by experts from the HSL's human factors team - which incorporates psychologists, ergonomists and risk scientists - and utilises complex data analysis to evaluate the answers given by workers and managers.

Peter Davies, HSL director, said the SCT has proved particularly useful in increasing reporting of accidents and 'near misses'. He said: "The updated SCT is a fantastic mechanism for enabling organisations to raise the profile of health and safety in the workplace and develop a strategy to tackle any areas of concern.

"Feedback from users of the original version is that it has helped to improve employee reporting of risk and incidents. I expect the new SCT we have developed will become a vital component in the toolkit for health and safety and human resources managers, now and in the future."

The SCT is available to purchase on CD ROM from January. HSL can also work directly with individual organisations to develop a customised tool bespoke for their needs.

ENDS

Editors Note:

The Health and Safety Laboratory was originally set up as HSE's in-house research and testing facility and continues to fulfil that original function, helping HSE deliver the UK Government's strategy for improving health and safety.

HSL's expertise and specialist services are also available to public and private sector clients in the UK and overseas. In 2007/8, independently sourced (i.e. non-HSE) business accounted for 20 per cent of the organisation's total revenue.

Workplace injury figures: HSE - Health and Safety Statistics 2008/9
http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/overall/hssh0809.pdf

Media representatives interested in visiting the Laboratory and/or interviewing members of the senior management team should contact Karen Wilkinson on 01298 218814