Health & Safety

RENÉ CARAYOL Culture is the key when it comes to a lasting H&S legacy

AFTER ALTON TOWERS We investigate how safe theme park rides really are

BREXIT: BAD NEWS FOR HEALTH & SAFETY What would an exit vote in this month’s referendum spell for the sector?

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AWARD-WINNING BUSINESS JOURNALISM • JUNE 2016

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Special report On the eve of Euro 2016, we investigate what businesses can learn from the Manchester United bomb scare

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Culture is the key when it comes to a lasting health and safety legacy OPENING SHOTS RENÉ CARAYOL

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DISEMBARK THE wonderful British Airways A380 at the pristine OR Tambo International airport in Johannesburg. It is one of the easiest long-haul journeys, taking off just in time for dinner and landing after a good night’s sleep in time for breakfast – in the comfort of this comfortable, near-silent new jet.

On stepping off the plane, it is plain to see the enormous legacy the successful 2010 World Cup bid has left for South Africa. The airport has had the most amazing upgrade and a much-needed “beauty facelift”.

I clearly remember so many cynical naysayers spouting off, “they’ll never be ready in time”. The US and England were encouraged by many commentators to make real contingency plans to be on “hot standby” for the eventual admission of failure t hat would surely come some time in 2009.

But the announcement never came, and the

tournament was a huge success. A whole set of new processes and procedures for the commensurate and necessary health and safety infrastructure were a by-product of the 2010 World Cup being staged in South Africa.

With nearly half a million fans and tourists flooding into South Africa, what appeared like a whole new industry was professionally put in place; consultants, experts, trainers, auditors and many more official bodies were all employed. The government and the South African footballing authorities were desperate to ensure this huge and very high-profile event would not suffer any tragic mishaps or accidents.

Matches were being played in all of South Africa’s major cities. Large noticeboards, high-vis jackets and forthright, friendly voices shared safety messages from just about every place fans gathered. Employees attended training courses and the media was mobilised to make health and safety “top of mind” for everyone, whether visitor or resident. The tournament went off without any major H&S issues.

Some six years later, the

“Culture can be the most dynamic of enablers, but it can also be be the most immovable of obstacles”

processes and procedures are still in place and seemingly rock solid, but frankly, the “culture” has yet to be transformed. Despite the uniforms, the rules and regulations and the endless (and rather high-handed) policing and treble-checking of the boxes that need ticking, in an environment where poverty and unemployment are still so unacceptably high, so is the desire to earn money – no matter what the personal risk. From mining to construction, and manufacturing to agriculture, the safety records are atrocious.

It is the culture that needs changing, not just the administrative processes. Far too many still start work with zero experience and zero training. As you have heard me say many times now, culture is so much more powerful than strategy. Culture can be the most dynamic of enablers but also the most immovable of obstacles, unless tackled and transformed with patience and resolve.

This demands strong and inspired leadership. On returning to Heathrow’s “best in class” Terminal 5, it struck me just how much the whole health and safety movement has

been transformed here in the UK. I’m old enough to remember people being allowed to smoke on flights – nowadays we think nothing of the safety notices screaming out in bright yellow and red everywhere. In fact, we all just about comply willingly with all the thorough searches and accept what we can and cannot take on board. We will queue endlessly to be checked and rechecked, without a murmur.

This is more than just the processes and procedures. It is a culture that has been both welleducated and transformed.

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fter three fabulous years, this is very sadly my final column for Business Reporter. I’m taking a little time off to finish writing my new book, Spike, which is about “strengths-based leadership”. We all have amazing strengths but society has become fixated with our weaknesses.

Thank you to the so supportive and professional team at Business Reporter and a very big thank you to all of you readers who have read and exchanged comments with me over the years. It has been an unforgettable privilege to serve you.

Dispelling myths of ‘the elf ’n’ safety’ There can be better ways to get employees fully involved in workplace regulations “All personnel at all levels must be engaged, from the CEO to the new apprentice” – Dr Karen McDonnell, RoSPA

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NE OF the main challenges faced by health and safety professionals in today’s workplace is that the old views of “elf ’n’ safety” persist – of bureaucratic form-filling in the name of meeting seeminglyarbitrary regulations.

So it’s understandable that employees may just see health and safety procedures and training as another box to tick – particularly those just starting out in the world of work, who still think they are invincible.

And while we all make efforts to change perceptions of health and safety in the workplace, we also need to ensure staff are on board. So it’s not surprising that one of the main questions we get at RoSPA from employers is how best to ensure their workers are fully engaged.

In 2009/10, RoSPA was funded by the HSE to look at worker involvement and what it looks like in practice, and developed the report Worker Involvement In Health And Safety: What Works? We had open discussions with a range of businesses and pulled together their experiences to develop a list of tips.

Top of the pile, which may come as no surprise, is to be patient, as the process of engaging workers takes time. Some of the businesses we spoke to said it took up to five

years before they were happy that processes were embedded.

Make sure directors and senior managers visibly support worker involvement culture, by personally addressing meetings, sending out messages, instructing managers and leading by example. Explain why you want to involve workers, and what it involves; try out an employee survey, and make sure to act quickly on suggestions. When receiving suggestions, either via the survey or another

method, make sure that person gets feedback, even if they answer is no – if that’s the case, tell them why. It’s important to show their feedback is valued, even if it’s not something that can be implemented.

All personnel at all levels, from the CEO to the new apprentice, must be engaged, so it might be wise to use different tactics. Take everybody’s views into account, including shift workers and part-timers.

At first, implement an anonymous system of reporting complaints or problems. This will be helpful at the initial stage, to help people to feel comfortable, but once worker involvement is more embedded, this may no longer be needed.

Ensure that workers know there is a genuine no-blame culture – worker involvement will not happen without this.

Talk face-to-face with staff; try taking small numbers of staff on regular safety walks around their work environment, but make sure you are visible. Consider taking staff to another organisation where worker involvement is working.

Ensure that health and safety representatives have training in how to be representatives, not just health and safety.

This should cover facets such as eliciting

views, presenting a case, feeding back to colleagues, and so on. Even in most of the best examples of worker involvement that we found, there was no training for representation.

It is also worth ensuring that representatives and managers are trained in soft skills.

People are generally reluctant to volunteer as a representative of employee safety, so it may be worth having a quiet word with those you think would do a good job.

Make sure that any joint health and safety committees have a workable balance of employee representatives and managers; managers involved, particularly the most senior ones, may consider leaving part of the meeting to make sure employees are not intimidated from speaking out. The need for this to happen will diminish as they grow in experience and confidence.

INDUSTRY VIEW

Dr Karen McDonnell (left) is occupational safety and health policy adviser for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) To read more of the report, see www.rospa.com/occupational-safety/ our-projects/workforce-involvement/

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Ashley in the dock over ‘Victorian’ conditions for Sports Direct workers

UKIP leader Nigel Farage meets workers at a Manchester metalworks earlier this year

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Worker’s rights at greatest risk if the UK leaves the EU, says report JOANNE FREARSON

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EAVING THE EU could put millions of people in the UK at increased risk of accidents or injuries in the workplace as well as reduced rights, according to the TUC. Almost two-thirds (63 per cent) of safety regulations introduced from 1997 to 2009 in Britain have originated from Europe. The regulations cover many of the most important sectors or risk factors that can lead to death, injury and ill-health in the workplace, such as chemical safety, carcinogens and musculoskeletal disorders. They also include machinery safety and personal protective equipment, and there are minimum standards across Europe which have helped prevent the importation and use of substandard or dangerous equipment.

Although it is difficult to say how many illnesses or lives have been saved because of the legislation, in 1992 there were 368 worker fatalities in Britain; this figure dropped to 142 last year.

If the UK votes to leave the EU, there is no guarantee that the UK government would

keep health and safety legislation at its current level. The government has already indicated it wants to reduce this so-called “red tape” of EU protection and deregulate health and safety laws.

So far the proposals include repealing a number of EU directives that require employers to provide eyesight tests for display screen equipment users and remove the requirement for small, low-risk businesses to make a written risk assessment. If the UK leaves the EU, further reductions are certainly likely.

Other regulation analysis published by the TUC claims that a million more employees are at high risk of being forced to work excessive hours if the UK votes to leave the EU. Brexit campaigners such as Boris Johnson, John Redwood and UKIP have indicated they want to scrap the EU Working Time Directive, which was introduced in 1998 to protect employees from working excessive hours without breaks or time off.

The directive has deterred many bosses from forcing UK workers into an average working week longer than 48 hours. Before the rules started in 1998, there were 3,992,000 employees in the UK working

more than 48 hours a week – since their introduction this has been reduced.

Paul Nowak, deputy general secretary of the TUC, says: “Leave campaigners keep telling us they think that working people’s rights are ‘burdens’ that should be scrapped.

“Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage say they want to get rid of EU working time protections – the ones that guarantee you 20 days paid holiday. And Priti Patel told business leaders that if Britain leaves the EU the government can scrap half the rules that protect people at work.”

Excessive hours are a big health and safety issue for companies. Frances O’Grady, TUC general secretary, says: “Brexit campaigners have made no secret of their wish to scrap working time protections. If they get their way, the 48-hour limit will be gone and your boss will be able to force you to work 60- or 70-hour weeks.

“The only way working people can be sure of keeping their rights at work is to stay in the EU. Nobody knows exactly how bad things could get for workers’ rights outside of the EU, but the legal experts are all saying it will be worse.”

IKE ASHLEY, owner of Sports Direct, underwent a grilling by MPs of the Business, Innovation and Skills committee on unfair working practices at the firm’s Derbyshire warehouse.

Employees had told Unite of “Victorian” work practices in the warehouse, with workers being in constant fear of losing their job and likening conditions to a “gulag” and a “labour camp”.

Unite, as well as undercover reporters from The Guardian, had found staff were paid £6.50 per hour on average for their shifts after

compulsory searches were taken into account, meaning workers received 20 pence below the national minimum wage. They were also deducted 15 minutes pay for clocking in just one minute late on arrival or on return from a break. There were reports of ambulances being called to the warehouse, with one woman even giving birth in the toilets.

At the hearing, Ashley admitted to workers being paid below minimum wage and that its policy of fining staff for being late was unacceptable.

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Why Brexit is bad news for the security and safety industries If the UK votes to leave the EU, this will see the end of a 43-year partnership that will have a decisive impact on the security and safety industries for generations

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NE OF the most compelling reasons why Brexit would be an economic disaster for the UK, and a significant disadvantage to the safety and security industries, is the impact that it would have on our service sector. This accounts for 80 per cent of the UK economy – and, according to the Barclays Trade Index, should account for half of the UK’s exports within a decade, Alison Wakefield writes.

Most existing trade deals exclude services, and the deals with the EU that do so also require free movement of people and common regulations. In the event of a Brexit, the UK would need to negotiate access to the European single market for its service industries, whereas EU manufacturers would automatically enjoy virtually unlimited rights to sell whatever they wanted in the UK under global World Trade Organization (WTO) arrangements, underpinned by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

Most (140) of the WTO’s 162 member states are also signatories of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), which governs services, representing up to 20 per cent of global trade. Arrangements for global trade in services are far less developed, however.

British exports would be constrained by non-tariff barriers (NTBs) (quotas, levies, embargoes, sanctions and other restrictions) if the UK ceased to apply EU singlemarket rules. Non-tariff obstacles to trade in services can include restrictions on ownership, personnel or remittance arrangements; discriminatory taxes, licensing regulations or procurement regulations; restrictions on import of necessary materials; absence of relevant international standards; inadequate protection of intellectual property; and government subsidies to locally owned firms.

In the period of economic uncertainty that would follow a Brexit, those likely to be hardest hit would be the selfemployed and other smaller enterprises, which suffer most in the event of a general lack of confidence or liquidity in the market as they are perceived to be higher risk, of key concern to the smaller security and fire installation companies that are vital to the UK security industry.

“The implications of Brexit are grave. Our country, and in turn our security industry, need to be in a position to confront the uncertainties of the future by remaining part of a strong Europe, not retreating to the sidelines”

80% Percentage of the UK economy accounted for by the services sector

down regulation even further. The prospect of the sector starting to revert back to its “wild west” days – characterised by poorly motivated guards from the bottom of the labour market, with insufficient training and excessive working hours – could therefore become worrying possibilities.

The implications of Brexit are grave. Our country, and in turn our security industry, need to be in a position to confront the uncertainties and challenges of the future by remaining part of a strong Europe, not retreating to the sidelines.

Impact on our manned guarding industry The positive impact EU regulations have had on the security industry should also be recognised. In a recent article by Professor Mark Button and Peter Stiernstedt on the consequences of a Brexit for the manned guarding industry, the authors explore a number of possible outcomes.

Arguably their most compelling arguments relate to the variety of regulations that have come from the EU and impacted positively on the security sector: the working time directive (hours worked and paid holidays), equal pay, maternity rights, TUPE protections, health and safety, public procurement and employees’ rights to information and consultation.

As the authors recognise, clearly they would not all disappear in the event of a Brexit, but many would become viable targets for those leading our government in the medium term. They also note that, having always been a reluctant regulator of the security industry, a Conservative government that is free of the EU may be tempted to water

Impact on our health and safety industry The UK is often cited as the upholder of a prestigious safety record, leading the way globally in health and safety initiatives to take the occupation beyond compliance, past the “elf and safety” of the tabloids and into celebrating excellence, as shown with UK Health & Safety Week. This said, it is undeniable that the EU has informed and set the standards expected of occupational safety. An important example of this is the Management of Health & Safety at Work Regulations 1999 bill, which came as a direct result of the EU’s Framework Directive; without the EU leading the way in regulatory updates, would the focus of health and safety have been the same?

This is not to forget a core regulation update over current years, the ESOS requirements. This UK initiative followed a mandate by EU Regulations to follow the Energy Efficiency Directive – one that has undeniably impacted the health and safety industry. Will the face of health and safety be

the same in the UK if these regulations are no longer mandated? How does this impact the role of health and safety professionals if the UK was to leave the EU?

How to join the debate on the safety and security industries’ future in a post-Brexit world It’s undeniable that Brexit is a contentious topic, with polarising opinions. Join the debate at #IFSEC2016, or attend one of the panel debates on the impact of Brexit for the security, safety, fire and facilities industries that will take place from 21 to 23 June 2016, at ExCeL London, as part of Protection & Management 2016.

Visitors can attend Protection & Management 2016, the host to Europe’s largest security event, IFSEC International, free of charge, as well as Safety & Health Expo, Facilities Show and FIREX International, to join 45,000 of their peers at ExCeL this June. With workshops and supplier meetings covering access control, video surveillance, drones, PPE, maintenance, office moves, fire safety, smart buildings and home automation, physical security and more, highlights include an in-situ purpose-built automated home, a drone zone, #SHE1000 – a celebration of gender diversity in these industries under the UK Health & Safety Week umbrella –and much more.

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To join the debate or attend the event, email emily.nicols@ubm.com or visit www.pmseries.co.uk

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A health and safety rollercoaster…

After last year’s accident at Alton Towers resulted in terrible injuries to customers and millions of pounds in damages, Matt Smith investigates how safe these attractions really are

“Parks with fixed attractions don’t tend to have small, low-level accidents. If something goes wrong on one of these big machines, it tends to go wrong in a pretty spectacular way” – Melvin Sandell, HSE

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R ITISH A MUSEMENT parks were thrown into the media spotlight last year when an incident on the Smiler rollercoaster at Alton Towers left five people with serious injuries. Since the crash, even routine stops on rides around the country have made dramatic headlines – but how safe are they really?

The record at theme parks and fairgrounds is “actually pretty good”, according to Melvin Sandell, a fairground inspector at the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). More than a billion “individual bums-on-seats rides” are taken every year, he says, and from those rides only around 35 people are taken to hospital for treatment.

This low accident rate is thanks to a range of safety precaut ion s, wh ic h st retc h f rom rollercoasters’ over-the-shoulder harnesses and electronic control systems to measures as simple as fences to keep park visitors away from moving parts.

While worn electrical equipment and the dangers of working at height are key risks for fairgrounds, which are taken apart and reassembled frequently, theme park operators have the advantage of being able to perform better maintenance on their equipment – although the stakes are higher on their high-octane rides.

“The parks with fixed attractions don’t tend to have small, low-level accidents,” Sandell says.

“If they have them, they tend to have big ones. This is part of HSE’s strategy with fairgrounds – the reduction of the chance of catastrophic accidents – because as was demonstrated last year at Alton Towers, if something goes wrong on one of these big machines it tends to go wrong in a pretty spectacular way.”

To prevent such incidents, huge amounts of money and time are spent to ensure these stateof-the-art rides are built with safety in mind from the start.

The Smiler at Alton Towers, for example, cost the park £18million to build.

“A lot of these big machines at theme parks tend to be bespoke things,” Sandell says. “You can’t go and buy a Nemesis and you can’t go and buy a Smiler off the shelf. T hese t hings are all

designed from the ground up, and the first part of any design for them is a thing called a design risk assessment.

“The initial thought before anything is even put to paper is that the initial idea is risk assessed to see whether the thing can be built and manufactured to operate safely. A nd then the entire design is so that the ride will be safe above all things.”

One key safety feature on multi-car rollercoasters is a track block system, whereby the ride is divided into as many as eight or nine sections and only one car is allowed in each at any time.

And to keep riders in place, overthe-shoulder harnesses provide what Sandell calls “360-degree containment”. These are also linked to the electronic system so the ride can come to a halt if anything goes wrong.

“All those are interlocked into the control system, so if they’re not down the machine won’t start and if they come loose when the machine is going the machine will stop,” he explains. This enables staff to get people off a ride if anything is potentially amiss.

While Sandell believes current restraints are reliable and will not change much, he says Wi-Ficonnected rides could be one the

1bn+

More than a billion rides are taken at UK theme parks and fairgrounds in an average year.

During that period, 35 people are hospitalised on average

next big innovations in developing new, safer attractions, as well as “one-wire” control systems, whereby interlocks, brakes and sensors are “individualised to their positions” and linked with a single wire.

“This sounds less failsafe, but it’s actually more failsafe because each of those safety features is not interchangeable with any other,” Sandell says. “There will only be one thing in one position, so that one control wire will operate the ride in a safer fashion.”

While rides are generally safe and developments like these will improve safety even further, Sandell appreciates that recent events have cast increased public scrutiny on theme parks and their attractions.

“The last 12 months have not been good for the industry in general,” he says. “Obviously there was the Alton Towers accident, which was a big, big, high-profile thing that is going to have ramifications around the world…

“The operators of that particular ride are considered to be world leaders in what they do and everybody’s pretty amazed, and if it can happen to them it can happen to any of us. So there’s a great deal of interest in how that happened.”

HSE is now working with the British Association of Leisure Parks, Piers and Attractions to ensure the robustness of its members’ risk management systems, and with the Health and Safety Laboratory to check that physical and electronic protections are as strong as the parks and regulators believe them to be.

“HSE is very aware that fairground accidents in general happen to children and young people out at leisure, so they have enormous emotional pressure and media pressure,” Sandell says. “HSE’s core st rategic approach, certainly in the past and the near future, is to do whatever we can to keep the chances of accidents – and particularly catastrophic accidents – down as far as is reasonably practical.”

Although work to further improve safety continues, Sandell again refers to the UK’s relatively low accident rate at amusement parks and fairgrounds: one death in the last seven years and only 35 people per year visiting hospital for treatment. “I think it’s still very true that you stand a far greater chance of being hurt driving to the fairground than you do when you’re actually on a machine,” he says.

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Incident investigation, safety and the bottom line

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Getting the health and safety message across Health and safety is often overlooked, but properly involving employees can play a big part in businesses becoming more efficient. Joanne Frearson reports “Employers are beginning to recognise that efficiency, quality and safety are all related, and each contributes to productivity costs” – David Cant, Veritas

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EALTH AND safety is vital to ensuring businesses run smoothly and to make sure employees as well as customers are protected from unlawful practices that can cause injury or even death.

It can be costly for businesses if they don’t follow health and safety practices. Business owners have been jailed and fined if companies have breached these rules and accidents occurred. In May, a restaurant owner, Mohammed Zaman, was convicted of manslaughter and jailed for six years after a customer with a peanut allergy died after eating a meal containing peanut powder.

The owner put profit before safety and risked customers’ lives after he substituted almond powder with a cheaper ground nut mix, which contained peanuts. The court found Zaman did not train his employees properly, did not warn customers, and failed to take any action following a previous serious allergic reaction.

“That particular case is one of a kind,” says David Cant, managing director of health and safety consultancy Veritas Consulting. “It sets a precedent in the food industry. My advice to anyone in that industry is not to ignore what it says on the tin, and do not cut corners.

“It is important to be very careful of the choice of stock and its content and understand that certain products can affect a person’s condition – take the necessary precautions.

“An employer must adequately train staff in the correct method of preparing and cooking food, with a strong emphasis on different dietary requirements. They need to be aware of that and cook accordingly.”

In other sectors such as construction, employees are at serious risk of developing mesothelioma – a type of cancer caused by exposure to

asbestos dust, which can lead to asbestosis – or pneumoconiosis, a lung disease triggered by dust inhalation, if health and safety rules are not followed.

According to HSE statistics in 2013, there were 2,538 deaths due to mesothelioma and 217 deaths where asbestosis was recorded as the underlying cause. There were 170 pneumoconiosis deaths, mostly due to coal dust and to a lesser extent silica, the fine dust generated from cutting rocks, stone and concrete.

Cant explains the big challenge is getting employees to buy into health and safety practices – to get them involved in the conversation and engage them rather than talking down to them about what to do. He says: “Someone with a yardstick approach of simply reading the rule book will not cut the mustard with some employees. It is not just talking to them and saying this needs to be done, but asking them their

Workplace deaths attributed to respiratory conditions in 2013

Mesothelioma

2,538

Pneumoconiosis

170

Asbestosis

217

SOURCE: HEALTH & SAFETY EXECUTIVE

opinions and saying how they feel things should be done. It is about getting them involved, talking and putting their tasks together so they feel part of what you are trying to achieve.”

Cant explains it is also important to address any communication and language barriers that may stop health and safety messages getting through. For example, some employees might need an interpreter, or mixed-language signs might need to be displayed. Employee handbooks in the native language of the employees have also become more popular with business.

By making a company more health and safety focused it also improves the efficiency of the business. Says Cant: “Employers are beginning to recognise efficiency, quality and safety are all related, and each of them contributes to productivity costs. Companies have adopted workplace programmes with an emphasis on improving productivity and quality, but also to improve the safety side as well. It plays an integral part of being a good business.”

Health and safety practices can also be improved and be more cost effective if companies use new technologies instead of people to do dangerous jobs. Cant says: “In the construction industry in some cases using drones can rule out the need for scaffolding or height equipment, which in turn can save a considerable amount of time and manpower. Camera-equipped drones can be used on site to survey quickly and easily, instead of sending guys up ladders or cranes to do visual checks.”

Businesses face risks and costs without adequate health and safety practices. Using new technologies can help reduce some of these risks, but to get the most out of these policies staff must feel engaged and be empowered to do their job safely so they are not putting themselves or others at risk.

SAFE ENVIRONMENT at work is something every employee expects and that every employer should strive to provide. How, then, can companies achieve this?

With over 30 years of experience in investigating incidents for multinational companies, David Ramsay, managing director of Kelvin TOP-SET, is well-placed to advise on the issue: “Incident investigation is a vital process for understanding and preventing incidents, both large and small. All incidents hold valuable information that can be used to improve safety and working practices.

This ultimately impacts business performance and the bottom l i n e , t hu s s a v i n g b o t h money and, more importantly, lives.

“Having a standardised incident investigation system approved at board level is of paramount importance, as is the provision of appropriate training for all those in the organisation who may be expected to conduct or take part in investigations.”

The TOP-SET investigation s y stem wh ic h R a m say ’s company provides is structured and straightforward. It enables an investigator to systematically identify the root causes of an incident while pinpointing where remedial actions should be taken.

Ramsay continues: “The key is ownership of your own safety and that of your colleagues.

Having a system such as TOPSET in place helps change the mindset of employees by creating an awareness of how incidents occur and empowering people to reduce the likelihood of incidents happening in their workplace.”

The adoption of standardised investigation systems and the subsequent communication and sharing of recommendations will ultimately help us all along the path to a zero-harm workplace.

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The stress equation

Research shows that taking work-related stress seriously can have huge benefits for both employees and businesses

New ISO standard will give health and safety its rightful seat at the board room table

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“Employees can feel a lot better about their workload and managing it if they have a degree of choice in exactly how they do it” – Mark Beatson, CIPD

TRESS-RELATED ILLNESSES at work are one of the biggest reasons for absenteeism and loss of productivity in the UK workforce, with research from Britain’s Healthiest Company finding this added up to £57billion a year in lost productivity.

The main factors which caused work-related stress, depression or anxiety were workload pressures such as tight deadlines, too much responsibility and a lack of managerial support, according to a Labour Force Survey.

Mark Beatson, chief economist at the CIPD, says: “A lot of work-related stress starts off with overwork. How do you stop that turning into unmanageable stress? Part of it, first of all, is trying to manage the workload as best you can and don’t simply just keep piling stuff on without any thought about what it entails.

“The second most important point is to give the employee some bit of control over their work. Employees can feel a lot better about their workload and managing it if they have a degree of choice. For example, in which order they do it or exactly how they do it.

“That can be a lot less stressful than other extremes, where everything is to the last possible little detail, or done to a rulebook or something, where the employee has no real influence over what they are trying to do.

“The other thing that has shown to be really important in this environment is support.

How work-related stress affects the bottom line In 2014-15, stress, anxiety or depression was responsible for…

35% …of all work-related ill health cases

43% …of all working days lost due to ill health

SOURCE: HEALTH & SAFETY EXECUTIVE

Employees need to feel like they can get support when they need it, even if they do not need it – particularly from line managers, but also from theircolleagues.

“What some employees also provide is employee assistance services. It is usually an outsourced facility where employees who want to talk to somebody about a problem can do so. If somebody is feeling under the cosh, they have somebody to ring up and talk to, independent of the employer.”

Although under health and safety regulation companies have a legal and moral duty to make sure their employees are not injured or made ill because of the work they do, sometimes they do not always follow best practices.

Nigel Marsh, the international bestselling author of Fat, Forty And Fired said in his TED talk How To Make Work-Life Balance Work, “Commercial companies are inherently designed to get as much out of you as they can get away with. It’s in their nature, it’s in their DNA, it’s what they

do – even the good, well-intentioned companies.”

To be balanced, Marsh believes you have to attend to the intellectual side, the emotional side and the spiritual side. “We need to approach balance in a balanced way,” he said.

“Being more balanced doesn’t mean dramatic upheaval in your life. With the smallest investment in the right places, you can radically transform the quality of your relationships and the quality of your life.

“It can transform society.

Because if enough people do it, we can change society’s definition of success away from the moronically simplistic notion that the person with the most money when he dies wins, to a more thoughtful and balanced definition of what a life well lived looks like.”

It makes good business sense to have a good health and wellbeing programme in place, that can make employees’ jobs enjoyable, give them a good work-life balance and reduce stress.

Research from the Britain’s Healthiest Company study found companies with the largest health promotion budgets saw an 8 per cent year-on-year improvement in the proportion of employees in good or excellent health, and a 16 per cent yearon-year reduction in productivity loss.

To help give companies guidance on how to do this, Mind is launching a Workplace Wellbeing Index. Mind will offer support and guidance to participating organisations based on their results. The index will become a benchmark of best policy and practice and will publicly rank employers on how effectively they are addressing staff mental wellbeing.

Beatson says: “It tends to be done as part of a parcel rather than something that is done to individuals on its own. Typically employers that engage in health and wellbeing programmes are doing all the other good things like employee engagement programmes.

“We are now seeing employe r s b ol t i n g o n t o t h e i r programmes ways to help employees manage their finances better. That is an area we are seeing a lot more interest in now.

It is one of the main causes of physical and mental problems at work.”

There’s no doubt a stressed workforce helps neither employees nor employer. Having a company health and wellbeing programme in place would certainly seem worth the investment.

RITAIN HAS a great track record in health and safety, but too many firms still view health and safety as a box ticking exercise.

The impending new ISO 45001 will help to change this – emphasising top management involvement and accountability, worker engagement and participation, and the need to prevent ill-health rather than just injuries, writes Mike Denison.

ISO 45001 will help propel health and safety up the business priority list and enable it to take a seat at the strategic top table. It will allow health and safety to become embedded across an organisation’s value chains, including its key support functions, such as procurement.

Directors will be not only be accountable for its management, but will need to demonstrate leadership. Importantly, they will be required to look at the health and safety standards within their supply chain too.

At the same time, new sentencing guidelines have seen fines for health and safety breaches shoot up, with two £2m fines in as many months and individual custodial sentences on the increase. With one six-year sentence having already been handed out, it’s a new world order that many businesses will undoubtedly find daunting.

Importantly, they are not without support. While the stakes have shot up, companies will have a robust lifebelt in the form of ISO 45001. This, along with other new ISO standards, will provide structure and clarity about how a business manages risks and opportunities at a strategic level. It equips companies with the right tools and processes to not only stay safe and compliant, but to also realise some of the many opportunities to be had from becoming more strategic about health and safety.

INDUSTRY VIEW

Mike Denison is health, safety and sustainability lead, EEF 0808 168 5874 mdenison@eef.org.uk

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H&S rehearsals at the Theatre of Dreams The recent bomb scare that postponed Manchester United’s final match of the football season put the club’s emergency plans to the test. Joanne Frearson reports

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S THE Euro 2016 football tournament kicks off in France this weekend, fans have been warned by to be vigilant at all times in areas hosting the events. Last year, three suicide bombers struck near the Stade de France on the same night 89 people were killed at the Bataclan theatre by terrorists. The country is on high terrorist alert and the French government has launched a free smartphone app to alert users of possible security incidents.

These incidents are the ultimate test of large stadiums’ health and safety procedures.

Last month a match between Manchester United match against Bournemouth had to be evacuated 20 minutes before the game was to start after the discovery of a suspect package. The evacuation was the first of its type in the UK, and is estimated to have cost Manchester United £3million.

The evacuation was certainly an opportunity for the club to evaluate its security procedures, and for the health and safety sector to learn from it. The £3million covers the cost of the club refunding match tickets and rescheduling the game (with free entry to initial ticketholders). But there is also lost revenue from corporate sales as well as staffing costs to consider, which could take the bill even higher.

The evacuation was found to follow the club’s health and safety rules to precision, and the crowd of 75,000 was able to leave the stadium safely, calmly and without incident. The suspect package turned out to be a fake, left in error after the training of dog handlers by a sub-contractor.

“Manchester United was the first time a stadium of that scale has been evacuated in that way,” Karen Eyre-White, CEO at the Sports Grounds Safety Authority, tells me.

“It was executed extremely well. Manchester United clearly had a plan that would have been tested to stand up to scrutiny.

“We will be very interested to see what they have learned from that experience and share that with other sports grounds.

We expect to see a lot of positive lessons about how they had very clear communications with the spectators. They made it really easy for fans to get out.”

Businesses holding events can learn a lot about how to handle the health and safety of large crowds in these types of situations from the Manchester United bomb scare. Eyre-White explains it is important that companies holding these events are not complacent.

“We will see more events similar to what happened at Manchester United,” she warns.

Stadium incidents – and what we learned from them

Fidenae (AD27)

Ibrox Park (1902)

The earliest recorded – and by far the deadliest – stadium disaster in history occurred after a cheaply built wooden amphitheatre collapsed during a gladiatorial contest near Rome, killing and injuring between 20,000 and 50,000. The Roman Senate responded by introducing building regulations – and having the venue’s owner executed.

The first stadium disaster on British soil resulted in 25 deaths and 517 injuries during an England vs Scotland international at the home of Glasgow Rangers, when the back of the newly built West Tribune Stand collapsed after a night of heavy rain. The design of the stand was afterwards banned, with future terraces required to have a reinforced foundation.

Estadio Nacional (1964) During an Olympic qualifier between Peru and Argentina, a ruled-out equaliser for Peru three minutes before the final whistle prompted a pitch invasion by infuriated home fans. Police responded by firing tear gas into the crowd – the panic resulting in the deaths of at least 328.

The stadium’s capacity was reduced as a result.

Hillsborough (1989) In probably the most notorious stadium disaster of modern times, 96 Liverpool fans were killed and 766 injured after police ordered an exit gate be opened to relieve crowd pressure during the team’s FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest.

The event resulted in sweeping changes to UK stadium regulations, and years of campaigning by the victims’ relatives.

“For sporting events to happen successfully, there is a huge operation that goes on behind the scenes to make sure people are safe” – Karen Eyre-White, CEO, Sports Grounds Safety Authority

“Unfortunately, the events in Paris [where terrorists attempted to detonate explosives inside the Stade de France on the same day as the Bataclan nightclub attacks last November] showed that sports fans can be a target for terrorists, and it does mean we need to be very vigilant.

“For sporting events to happen successfully, there is a huge operation that goes on behind the scenes to make sure people are safe. It is really important that senior managers and people on the board understand that this is something that needs continued attention. It needs to be on the board agenda – understanding that spectator safety has to be the first priority. What we really need to avoid is complacency, and we need to make sure senior managers and boards are taking this seriously.”

The way to do this, Eyre-White explains, is to have a safety culture running throughout the organisation, where everyone is aware of their role during a health and safety event. “It is not just a safety team at a sports ground that needs to worry about this,” she says. “It is catering staff, it is ticketing staff… really, just having a culture throughout the organisation that underMain image: fans are evacuated stands spectators are the life-blood of the following a bomb event.” Crowds that are not managed scare during properly during an evacuation can have Manchester United’s final serious consequences for businesses. game of the The Sports Grounds Safety Authority season against was set up in 1990 to regulate local authoriBournemouth; right: tributes ties, as result of the Hillsborough stadium placed at disaster, to improve standards in stadiums.

Anfield’s Shankly During an FA Cup game betweek Liverpool Gates after the Hillsborough and Nottingam Forest in 1989, 96 Liverpool Enquiry published fans were killed and 766 injured at Hillsits verdict earlier borough stadium in Sheffield when a larger this year

than expected group of fans entered the ground after police chief superintendent David Duckenfield ordered an exit gate to be opened, which caused overcrowding.

This year’s inquest into the disaster found that fans were unlawfully killed and that Duckenfield was “responsible for manslaughter by gross negligence” due to a breach of his duty of care.

“Sports grounds have come a long way since the events at Hillsborough,” Eyre-White says. Indeed, since the disaster, sporting grounds have been switched to all-seating layouts, and take a more integrated approach to spectator safety.

The Sports Ground Safety Authority not only advises football clubs in England and Wales, but also other sporting events in the UK and across the world, and Eyre-White has plenty of advice for companies that stage events at stadiums. She explains the most important thing is that they ensure

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Most firms are not uncaring – and H&S need not be at the expense of profit EXPERT INSIGHT SIMON ASHBY

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they have a safe capacity for the ground, which means they know how many people they should safely have inside.

“Can you get everyone in in a certain period of time? Can you get everyone out in a certain period of time?” she asks. “Can you evacuate in emergencies? Those are the components that go into making sure you know how many people you can safely have.

“Once you know that, you need to make sure you have a spectator safety policy, which is about how you keep spectators safe. That will cover things like the allocation of responsibility within the safety team, or who will be your safety officer for the event.

“Do they have enough support? Do they have the right trained stewards? How do you make sure that training is being constantly maintained? It will set out the safety procedures and will also set out contingency plans.”

It is also for important for sports grounds to conduct exercises with local emergency services such as the police and ambulance services. Eyre-White says: “They might sit down and work through some exercises, imagine some scenarios and talk together over what they should do, and what they will be asking people to do at certain times. That is an opportunity to scrutinise the plans and make sure they would work in practice.

“This integrated approach brings together sports grounds, local authorities, police and other emergency services into a single coherent structure with a common safety focus. It has shown that people are safer when all partners work together to make their safety a priority.

Really, it is about a collaborative approach, not the sports ground working in isolation.

They need good relationships with the police, emergency services and local authorities – as

3

£ m

How much the full stadium evacuation cost Manchester United after a suspect package was found at Old Trafford last month

we saw at Manchester United, when there is an evacuation, it is about how these people all work together.”

What Eyre-White advises boards do that need to get their health and safety practices up to scratch for a big event is to have a safety officer in place. “It is really important that they have trained and competent staff helping,” she says. “This is where a safety officer in a sports ground is really important. That is someone that has professional qualifications in safety. They will be familiar with the legal requirements around this work.

“If there was a board that we were worried did not have what was needed, the first thing I would be advising them to do would be to have a safety officer who has those professional qualifications and can advise on this.”

But the world of H&S is always changing, so once all the processes are put in place, companies need to constantly review them, as new challenges and risks can constantly emerge that need to be addressed.

“We’re seeing increased use of flares and smoke bombs by spectators in sports grounds,” Eyre-White says by way of example. “There has also been a huge rise in the popularity of drones – which, if not properly managed, can pose significant risks to safety.”

Health and safety for businesses putting on large events is a never-ending process of review, and companies need to be constantly vigilant about the challenges that can face the management of large crowds. Manchester United’s bomb scare might have been disconcerting for all involved, not to mention hugely disappointing for the fans expecting to see their team’s last game of the season. But it was also a valuable dry run that anyone running a large event should learn from.

N MY youth I was a middle class hippy. The pursuit of money was of little interest to me and the concept of a nine-to-five job sent shivers down my spine. Yet despite this I decided to study economics and business at university. I still have no idea why.

Approaching my graduation in the early 90s, I started to dread the idea of a conventional job in a conventional business, but it was then that I discovered that not all business-related activities were necessarily focused on generating a profit. I won a student place at the annual conference of AIRMIC (the Association of Insurers and Risk Managers in Industry and Commerce) and met for the first time the “health and safety manager”, and their cousin, the “risk manager”.

I had a great time at this conference, discovering that “business people” could drink far more than the average student, but I also learned that not everyone in business was as profit-hungry and unethical as I has imagined.

Many of the health, safety and risk professionals I met told me stories of businesses which put profit before safety, and of their valiant efforts to protect staff from a myriad of hazards. As an impressionable youth I lapped up these tales and decided that there was a place in business for me after all, but in the nobler role, as I saw it, of a health and safety manager. And though my focus has broadened over the years, I still work in the field of risk management both as a practitioner and academic.

Since the 90s I have gained much more experience and wisdom, and learned that very few businesses are the uncaring and excessively profit-hungry organisations I had imagined in my youth. But there still seems to be a belief in many quarters that safety and profit are not necessarily compatible.

A seminal piece of work in this field is the 1972 book Safety Or Profit by the eminent sociologists Theo Nichols and Pete Armstrong.

In this book Nichols and Armstrong explored how the chemical industry frequently adopted poor health and safety practices in order to increase profits. This work subsequently influenced regulatory reforms in the UK and internationally.

While it was written in the 1970s, Nichols and Armstrong’s book was only recently updated, in 2014, and they and others have continued to find a trade-off between safety and profit in organisations. It is a very accessible read and recommended to anyone with an interest in health and safety.

However I wonder whether the trade-off between safety and profit should be so stark? Especially in post-industrial economies like the UK. Workers who are healthy and feel their employer prioritises their safety are likely to be more productive and committed. Many roles are now highly skilled and employees require a lot of training.

Losing them for even a short period of time can be very costly.

Even in less skilled industries and less developed economies organisations are learning that their customers value investment in health and safety; take for example public reaction to the Rana Building collapse in Bangladesh in 2013.

It is also the case that mental health and musculoskeletal problems are becoming increasingly significant. For those of us who are predominantly desk-bound the risk of physical injury is slight, but problems such as workplace stress or repetitive strain injury are growing. Such issues can again have a significant effect on workplace productivity, especially when skilled employees are absent for months at a time.

So if you run a business remember that effective H&S is about more than regulatory compliance and need not mean earning less profit.

In fact it will often mean your organisation is more productive with happier more committed workers. Overlook health and safety at your peril.

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UK premiere at the Safety & Health Expo: a dust mask with an active ventilator Setting a new standard for disposable dust masks, eliminating the discomfort of conventional disposable masks

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HE CONVENTIONAL disposable dust mask does not address the issue of the discomfort experienced in prolonged use. These masks do not expel exhaled air, and, therefore, rebreathing of carbon dioxide and moisture occurs. With daily use of a conventional mask, users often experience stuffiness and general discomfort because of the accumulated heat and moisture in the mask. At t he same time a build-up of carbon dioxide is reinhaled, causing symptoms like dizziness, reduced alertness and headaches.

A new standard in disposable dust masks The detachable AIR+ active ventilator enhances the comfort of wearing a dust mask immensely by expelling the hot and humid air from your mask and at the same time preventing a build-up of carbon dioxide in the mask. Wearing the AIR+ you will be comfortable and stay alert.

The AIR+ disposable dust mask at a glance • Keeps you cooler and fresher.

Reduces the temperature in the mask by up to 4°C and the relative humidity by up to 40 per cent.

• Eliminates CO2 buildup inside the mask. Expels CO2 from the mask and prevents headaches and dizziness.

• S aves you money. Fewer disposable masks are used, since they stay fresh longer.

• Rechargeable and reusable. Easy charging via micro USB, with 2.5 hours usage per charge.

INDUSTRY VIEW

Learn more and watch the video at www.SmartMask.dk, or visit stand P2150 at the SAFETY & HEALTH EXPO, London, June 21-23, and experience the AIR+ first hand. iTOOLS is the European distributor of AIR+. Contact iTOOLS on +45 53 53 33 15 or mail@iTOOLS.dk

A speedy solution to health and safety

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T SPEEDY, safety is in our DNA and comes as standard in everything we do. We lead the industry in safety, and deliver a consistently high performance across all aspects of health, safety, security, environmental and quality (HSSEQ) management. We recognise that because of our operations, our employees are regularly exposed to hazards on sites and in the workplace, and we manage these hazards, to both employees and our customers, through the deployment of robust safety management systems.

Accurate reporting is an essential part of building a robust safety management system, and at Speedy we actively encourage the reporting of all incidents. To facilitate this we have introduced a new common near-miss/unsafe condition-reporting system at every operational site. As a result, the number of near-misses and unsafe conditions can be monitored, and actions implemented to prevent more serious incidents occurring. Our accident rates have reflected the increase in near-miss reporting by reducing year on year for the past two years, from 0.18 to our current level of 0.12 reportable accidents per 100,000 hours worked. While it cannot be proved that this achievement is due to better reporting, it

1,500 Number of UK suppliers using the Achilles Building Confidence online registration and accreditation standard

is highly likely that this is the principal reason, given the emphasis that has been placed on incident reporting and the followup improvement activities.

Speedy is a proud active member of the major industry accreditation schemes and is committed to working with them to drive forward the standards of best practice. Our current accreditations include ISO 9001 for Quality Management, ISO 14001 for Environmental Management, OHSAS 18001 for Health & Safety Management and the ISO 50001 certification for Energy Management to meet the requirements of the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS).

Achilles Building Confidence is an online registration and accreditation standard used by 17 buyer organisations and over 1,500 suppliers in the UK construction sector, provides a robust prequalification, compliance, and audit process for the construction industry. We have been accredited with a five-star rating for the fourth year running. In our rail business we have maintained a five-star rating for our Achilles RISQS (Rail Industry Suppliers Qualification Scheme) accreditation (formerly Link-up).

We demonstrate our commitment to corporate social responsibility (CSR) through

our Intelligent Solutions brand, which encompasses safety, environment, community, workplace and the marketplace.

I chair our CSR committee, and work with the leaders across the business as well as supporting our customers in setting the very highest standards.

Our Intelligent Safety brand offers customers advice on key health and safety topics such as dust control, hand-arm vibration, working at height and manual handling. We operate a micro web site which our customers can access, and produce free leaflets which are distributed on sites providing advice to our customers on these key areas.

Our work on safety is not only for the good of our business, because our commitment to these high standards helps us win and retain work. It’s also good for our customers in helping them achieve their targets through their supply chain.

INDUSTRY VIEW

Steve Giblin (top left) is group HSSEQ director; Russell Down (bottom left) is group chief executive, Speedy Services steve.giblin@speedyservices.com russell.down@speedyservices.com

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Inspector As a huge fan of the Star Wars movies (he’s particularly partial to the maligned prequel trilogy, particularly the numerous fascinating trade disputes which permeate its plot), the Inspector is naturally also a big fan of actor Harrison Ford, who plays dashing intergalactic smuggler Han Solo.

So he was doubly distressed to discover that on the set of Star Wars: The Forces Awakens, Ford was seriously injured after he was struck by a heavy hydraulic metal door on the Millennium Falcon set.

Encouragingly, though, the health and safety regulators went into full swing – with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) informing Foodles Production (UK) that it would be prosecuted over the incident, which saw Ford suffer a broken leg as well as other injuries.

Foodles Production was the company responsible for producing The Force Awakens and under health and safety law was also responsible for managing the risks created during production.

The accident happened on 12 June 2014 at Pinewood Studios and Foodles appeared at High Wycombe Magistrates Court on 12 May 2016 to face four charges.

In a statement, a spokesman for HSE said: “By law, employers must take reasonable steps to protect workers – this is as

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Dogberry

The number of people at risk of HAVS in the UK

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Health and Safety News

HSE chair’s blog

From the industrial health and safety practices your business cannot afford to ignore to the unique risks faced by the wind energy sector, Health and Safety News takes on all aspects of the topic. It also features reference pages for health and safety case law, job sites and useful links for guidance on staying safe in the workplace.

The Health and Safety Executive’s interim chair George Brechin and the previous chair Dame Judith Hackitt give their thoughts on developments in the world of health and safety on this blog, which also features speech transcripts and a section dedicated to busting common health and safety myths.

www.healthsafetynews.co.uk

true on a film set as a factory floor. We have investigated thoroughly and believe that we have sufficient evidence to bring the case to court.”

Star Wars: The Force Awakens was the seventh instalment in the Star Wars Film Series, breaking box-office records and grossing more than $2billion worldwide. It became the highest-grossing instalment of the franchise, the highest-grossing film in North America and the third-highest grossing film of all time.

The film won Best Special Visual Effects at the British Academy Film Award and received five Academy Award nominations.

Dogberry loves getting his paws dirty in the garden, so he was pleased to learn

that soup producers Cully & Sully and GIY (Grow It Yourself) are calling for UK businesses to sign up to the “Al Desko Food Growing Challenge” and grow peas at their desks.

Each person entering the challenge will receive a Grow Pack, which will contain a Cully & Sully soup tub for growing your peas in, seeds, soil and expert growing tips and training advice from GIY founder Michael Kelly.

The campaign brings the “green corporate” concept to a new level, encouraging employees to sign up for some “office farming” and add some greenery to their workplace.

All teams who take part are encouraged to log their growing adventures on social

COMPANY CALLED Reactec has recently launched a ground-breaking wearable monitoring system called HAVWEAR to revolutionise company and employee protection against the risk related to Hand-Arm Vibration Syndrome (HAVS).

Also known as Vibration White Finger, HAVS is a debilitating and incurable condition – one of the most common industrial diseases in the UK. The HAVS condition is usually caused by the prolonged use of power hand tools, whose vibrations can permanently damage the blood vessels, nerves, muscles and joints of the hand, wrist and arm. There is no known cure for this condition, only prevention.

The HAVWEAR is the first practical vibration dosimeter technology worldwide to be suitable for everyday use and monitoring.

The HAVWEAR is worn on the tool user’s wrist to sense in real-time the vibration experienced by the tool user and can be synchronised to an RFID tag on the tool to identify the source of vibration. The product is set to revolutionise the assessment of risk from the use of power tools, which traditionally relied on an understanding of trigger time with a static assumption of the tools vibration performance. Data from Reactec’s system clearly demonstrates that the vibration emitted from a tool can vary dramatically depending on the task undertaken with the tool, the skill of the tool

www.hse.gov.uk/news/ chairs-blog/index.htm

Veritas Consulting Health and Safety Blog

media and the dedicated “GrowWall”. The top growers will have the potential to win a prize bag worth £4,000.

Kelly said: “The GIY@Work phenomenon is fueled largely by the interest in employee wellness, with employers starting to see how food growing can impact positively on physical and mental health.

“It can also offer lessons about teamwork, problem solving and persistence that are highly applicable to the office.”

New monitoring system launched to combat hand-arm vibration syndrome

2m

BY MATT SMITH, WEB EDITOR

www.veritas-consulting.co.uk/ blog

Health and safety experts from Veritas Consulting bring you news and insights from the industry. Recent posts include a case study on an accident in a factory, a discussion of the ongoing debate over poisonous dust, and a two-part look at the tough new sentencing guidelines for H&S.

Envesca blog

www.envesca.co.uk/about-us/ blog/latest.html/

Noise Exposure (Free – iOS, Android)

Developed by the Swedish Work Environment Authority, this app lets you check the approximate noise levels in your workplace.

Health and Safety at Work Act (Free – iOS, Android) Does exactly what the name would

suggest – browse, read and search the UK’s health and safety legislation from the palm of your hand.

What precautions should businesses take over allergies?

Why does manual handling cause more than a third of all workplace injuries? And what kind of first-aid cover do business leaders need to provide at their companies?

The authors of this blog, who are specialists in health and safety, have the answers.

operator and the condition of the tool itself. HAVwear removes these variables to give a truer assessment of the real-time risk faced by the tool user.

Already adopted by major companies including Balfour Beatty, British Airways, Rolls Royce, Morgan Sindall and Murphy Group, the HAVWEAR also alerts the wearer of their personal exposure to educate and support behavioural change towards HAVS risk.

The HAVWEAR records exposure and tool usage data which is transmitted online for employers to review individual to company-wide exposure risk reports. These clear and concise reports help identify and address the source of exposure as required by the HSE regulations to more effectively reduce HAVS risk.

INDUSTRY VIEW

Jacqui McLaughlin is CEO at Reactec 0131 221 0930 www.reactec.com

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New ways of working Why are digitally disruptive trends changing operational risk, compliance and safety – and why now?

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IGITISING OPERATIONAL functions across the physical world has received enormous interest, as attention has turned to organisations heavily involved in managing and executing their operations through local, regional and global supply chains. These organisations are now looking for new ways to pursus competitive advantage.

Ark Workplace Risk looks beyond the hype to understand the technology development that creates efficiencies and interoperability resulting in real economic value across the value chain.

We are approaching a new era, where organisations holding physical assets and managing facilities functions will play catch-up, albeit slowly, with other industries such as retail, where consumer technology has traditionally led the way. In 2011, Ark Workplace Risk resolved the issue of continuous development of technology and adaptation to changing markets and behaviour that legacy software platforms struggle to execute. The explosion of data has pushed organisations to a paradigm shift in the way they manage and execute day-to-day operations, to embrace global scale, new business models, and agility while creating real economic value. Forwardthinking professionals managing facilities, infrastructure and supply chains recognise that interoperability between systems and ecosystems are the most ubiquitous aspirations, and the historic expectation of value enhancement is being replaced with value creation.

The internet of things (IoT) and new ways of working (NWoW) have the potential to fundamentally shift the way operational assets and processes interact with surrounding factors. The ability to work across the customer and supply chain digitally makes it possible to make better, more timely decisions based on data.

Research suggests the potential impact of IoT globally by 2025, will be $3.9trillion to $11.1trillion.

Being at the forefront, we can see a trend that the increasingly volatile and uncertain business environment in the next five to 10 years requires defined, adaptable and transformative strategies, with partner organisations that will enhance their competitiveness and agility. Our team research live usercases, and positive customer feedback on moving away from legacy technology illustrates the value being created in B2B markets. One powerful example is turning the data into hindsight,

insight and foresight for decision support.

One of the crucial lessons we have learned from our experience in the FMPI market is often focused around rationalising silo-critical systems evolving the idea of “One Platform Concept”. This essentially involves engaging both the hardware and software technology elements to create a highly scalable interoperable and customisable “One Platform Solution”.

One central outcome of NWoW is the blurring of boundaries between strategic business decision-making and the procurement of services in areas such as FM, IT, logistics, business process outsourcing, and corporate real estate. As a result, FMPI is in many ways evolving from a single-services approach towards an industry that provides complete multi-services, to logistics-integrated workplace and management solutions.

“Optimised Automation” of routine-operational work at an advanced rate will enable more jobs to become more creative and focused on research, design, innovation, storytelling, product development, improved customer service, better data and quality management. Employees will be rewarded for their ability to work across disciplines and boundaries, while maintaining competitiveness and therefore providing opportunities for co-creation.

Co-creative processes need new measures, and success will come to be defined more in terms of actual outcomes achieved, and less in terms of hours worked or volume produced. The idea is to get the best from employees, rather than the most out of them – and any automation system that can connect people, processes and assets in a way which enables organisations to set the direction and allow employees to pursue respective outcomes will be more competitive.

Estimates from MGI suggest operational improvements based on IoT technology could be worth $50billion to $470billion per year across worksite industries in 2025.

This research supports our experience in implementing multi-services IoT enabled automation, highlighting that the bulk of improvements would come from streamlining processes across worksites. MGI case studies also indicate that operational optimisation can increase overall worksite productivity by 5 to 10 percent, in addition to cost savings – an efficient way to connect people, processes and assets.

The highlighted benefit of IoT technology is the development of mobile enterprise platforms, enabling worksite operators to move away from paper-based solutions and carry out day-to-day operations while keeping in complete synch with their central team in real time.

This gives greater control over operations, better quality of data,

fewer errors, improved defensibility, a reduction in risk and increased productivity. Additional benefits include increased predictability and improved effectiveness and productivity.

In other environments such as physical retail spaces such as stores, bank branches, theatres, sporting arenas or shopping centres, digitisation has brought in drastic changes. IoT can be further disruptive if implemented at the grass root where day-to-day operations can be made competitive with simplified execution tools for vendors and customers.

Traditionally, due to lower margins and volatile sales, retail enterprises have been highly fragmented in its implementation of the latest technologies. However, we see a rise even among smaller retailers with the adoption of IoT specifically – for example, in payments, safety and loss-prevention and inventory control systems. This adoption of IoT has significantly increased performance while substantially reducing loss from theft and increased staff productivity and customer satisfaction.

Using real-time data to manage IoT systems across different worksites, suggests the need of interoperability.

Ark Workplace Risk’s QUOODA® Enterprise Software Platform is one of the most advanced interoperable systems, enabling dashboards optimised for smartphones, advanced algorithms for real-time optimisation and multiple services connectivity on a single platform. The cross-vertical application of QUOODA®, a platform that is robust, scalable, and integratable to other systems, is one of the most adaptable and cost-effective solutions to be implemented.

We believe organisations, whether local, regional or global, that are moving towards adopting IoT-interoperable and multi-services systems, would not only save cost by rationalising multiple-silo systems, but can also have first-mover advantage and remain competitive given changing market requirements. This enables such organisations to continually improve operations, reduce risk, gather greater foresight and drive data-driven decision support, while creating real economic value.

INDUSTRY VIEW

Nelson Sam is president and chief operating officer, Ark Workplace Risk +44 (0)20 7397 1450 Nelson.Sam@arkworkplacerisk.com www.arkworkplacerisk.com

June 2016

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What do workplace accidents really cost your business?

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UK companies are unwittingly losing out by misapplying HSE regulations

M Bali Rakhra LLB is commercial director at CKL Workwear Distribution

AYBE IT’S due to my background in law, but while supplying workwear over the past 25 years I’ve noticed that UK organisations are misapplying the HSE regulations in several different ways – and losing out considerably. Here’s one example.

Manufacturers spend millions each year creating fantastic and innovative health and safety products with the potential to improve the lives of the UK’s workforce considerably. Yet often these products just sit on the shelves, benefitting no one. Companies reject these products on the basis of cost, but often, it needn’t even cost them a penny. I can explain.

Legally speaking, UK companies must pay for all necessary Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). However, comfort or wellbeing products are often not such

A matter of life and death

L

“necessary” items of PPE, which is why companies can refuse to buy them. However, this also means that UK companies are not obliged to pay for them. Instead, the workforce can lawfully be offered the choice to buy these products themselves, at their own cost or partly subsidised by the employer.

If handled properly, this represents the ultimate win-win solution. Workers have access to the best, most innovative H&S products that could significantly improve their daily lives, while H&S officers feel more fulfilled, procurement managers are pleased at the savings and the company benefits overall from a happier, more motivated workforce. Also, empowering the workforce to share responsibility for their own wellbeing can reduce any subsequent compensation claims as the onus partly

INDUSTRY VIEW

Contact Bali Rakhra to find out more.

CKL is launching its Health & Safety WINWIN campaign at the IOSH Conference, London ExCeL Centre, June 22 2016 sales@ckl.uk.com ckl.uk.com/workwear

Why you need to understand how to deal with confined spaces

OOK AT the adjacent picture and ask yourself this question: is it…

• An enclosed space • A confined space • Neither of the above

Answer It is a confined space, and it is where three people died. The first individual slipped on top of the slurry tank while cleaning it. He fell in and was immediately overcome by an atmosphere that was high in carbon dioxide and low in oxygen. He fell into sludge at the bottom of the tank and disturbed more noxious gases.

The other two people who died were attempting to rescue their colleague.

shifts onto the employee for rejecting any product that could have prevented the injury.

There are other win-win solutions I could suggest, but even just this single idea can significantly reduce the UK’s injury statistics and benefit UK companies enormously – and IOSH (The Institution of Occupational Safety & Health) agrees. Of course, proper legal consultancy is required to ensure compliance with HSE regulations – but don’t worry, that’s my job.

Environmental conditions worsened quickly after the sludge at the bottom of the tank was disturbed.

As there were no environmental monitors, the people concerned would have had no idea of the hazards in the tank or of the risks they were taking. In truth, once the two men attempting to rescue their colleague had decided to enter

the tank, their fate was sealed.

There was no chance of survival in that environment.

• There are national occupational standards for safe entry, work and rescue from confined spaces.

Conclusion

Remember, it is your confined space.

It is your problem and you have to provide the solution.

MRS Training & Rescue is able to offer first-class practical training and competence assessment, in state-ofthe-art confined space facilities, to prepare and train anyone who works in confined spaces.

• Know your confined space • Identify hazards • Identify risks • Control risks • If the environment needs to be monitored, ensure you have the correct environmental monitor • Ensure you supply respiratory protection if required • Ensure your rescue arrangements are suitable, sufficient and effective • Legislation requires you are competent before you enter a confined space

CCIDENTS IN the workplace range from cuts and bruises to fatalities – but they all mean costs. Those costs may be human as well as financial, but it is the employer who will be paying.

The insurable costs of workplace accidents were around £2.8billion, according to the Health and Safety Executive. But the hidden costs – sickness, corporate reputation and lost production – swell the true cost of hospital accidents to £8.4billion.

Health and safety software should make reporting an incident simple, intuitive and available to everyone – employees and contractors alike.

Photos, GPS location and the sender’s identity can all be captured, along with sound recordings.

Staying safer Health and safety improvement starts with ensuring effective incident reporting – which can help identify hidden threats before another incident occurs.

Developing analysis of near misses can pinpoint where accidents, and costs, are likely to happen – to reduce future incidents, and drive down costs.

It can help promote a culture of safety across the business, and generate a log to satisfy the most demanding inspection – while helping identify where the next incidents are likely to occur.

Your workplace is safer, you as an employer are safer – and your costs are reduced, while your reputation is protected.

To find out more about how near-miss reporting can stop draining your resources and prevent potential causes of serious harm and suffering to your workforce, download our free whitepaper at j.mp/ near-miss-whitepaper INDUSTRY VIEW

INDUSTRY VIEW

For more details see www.mrstrainingandrescue.com or visit MRS at the Safety & Health Expo on stand L2200

Louise Perryman is director, business development at Elmstone Systems Ltd 01304 382410 www.mirashare.com

June 2016

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VERYONE IS familiar with the groan around the office when it comes to that time of the year when people have to complete their health and safety training. Cries of “Why”, “We did that last year”, “I’m far too busy and important” are commonplace in most organisations. However, while employers are legally obliged to keep employees safe at work and thus have to provide training relevant to their roles or positions, this does not mean that the training has to be “irrelevant”, “mind numbing”, “boring”, or “outdated”.

It is commonly accepted these days that basic training is best offered through e-learning. The benefits far outweigh the alternatives: cost and time efficiency; robust reporting and recording; proof of material comprehension and much more. However, it is a sad truth that e-learning providers have themselves come to accept that this basic-level training is going to be poorly received by end-users, and so to an extent have stopped trying to find appropriate solutions.

Gaming, videos, interaction and scenario-based sections of content are supposed to ease the passage into boredom which the learner will inevitably face. The irrelevant sections are to be stomached because the law insists that employees have completed a full course about a specific subject, and that is that.

Sitting through a course showing the wrong environments for your working conditions, or sections of content about working at desktops when you only use laptops, is just “the way it is” and must simply be accepted... or must it?

“There are two main solutions to this problem,” says Toby Roberts from Safety Media. “Either curate your own e-learning courses using one of the many tools out there that claim to make light of the skills involved in creating good e-learning courses, and convert your trusted PowerPoints into great and, questionably, engaging e-learning courses for you. Or, if your time is better spent elsewhere in your organisation, you can approach one of the many companies who will create a bespoke course for you which is tailored to the exacting needs of every member of your organisation.

This, of course, depends on you knowing what these needs are, and having a very large budget in order to accommodate everyone from the finance department to the shop floor.”

Each of these “solutions” take away one of the two key reasons why most organisations choose to use e-learning in the first place – either to save time, or save money. Both options have their merits if you have the resources to dedicate to them. Bespoke courses can cover things that generic off-the-shelf content will never think or dare to approach.

So what can be done to bridge this gap, to make health and safety training accessible, affordable and relevant?

Impossible, you may say. Actually, it’s

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Breaking perceptions: why ‘off-the-shelf’ can offer flexibility like never before

“The most common feedback we get is that end-users get bored when faced with compliance training, as it is mostly filled with irrelevant content” – Toby Roberts, Safety Media

not, thanks to advances in technology and different approaches to development.

Some 20 years in the health and safety training sphere has enabled Safety Media to see a great deal of change, and never has it been more important than now to make the most of employees’ time, patience and enthusiasm for, and commitment to, compliance-based activities. From years of research and interactions with clients it has become clear that, although off-the-shelf courses are still the most desirable form of training for most organisations, the relevancy of the material can be a huge frustration.

Even the best e-learning providers cannot cater for every nuance in every organisation – and it is for this reason that Safety Media has put together a new piece of software called Course Creator, which allows organisations to pick sections from standard courses and add them to a playlist, thus only including the content relevant to the organisation or departmental needs. Using drag-anddrop functionality, this tool is as easy to use as popular music streaming sites, and company-specific courses can be created – and most importantly deployed – in minutes.

“The most common feedback we have from potential new clients is that end-users get bored when faced with compliance training, as it is mostly filled with irrelevant content. With

Five reasons e-learning is still the best for basic health & safety training 1M inimal disruption to work schedules – train when it’s convenient, not at a set time.

2C ost-effective way to train large numbers of staff and provide refresher training.

3N ew tools allow for content and context to be more relevant to learner needs.

4C entralised management, recording and reporting of information.

5C omplete transparency for auditors and other inspecting/governing bodies. the Course Creator tool, managers will be able to select elements relevant to job roles and environments which will increase recognition and retention of material, enabling a more positive health and safety culture.”

For example, in a standard induction course the DSE section can include the types of hardware employees will actually use, while the fire safety section discusses how to evacuate from a high-rise building – not so interesting if you are a single-storey site!

Previous providers have offered the ability to amend certain sections of “off-the-shelf” training in order to increase relevancy to a specific organisation. This sounds great in theory, but

what is often neglected is the fact that, as soon as the standard material itself is tampered with, the course loses any approvals or accreditations that it may hold – for example, RoSPA or CPD. By opting for a solution that keeps the content standard but just allows you to pick and choose which content you use in a course solves the accreditation issue as the content is the same as that which was originally approved.

For the first time, organisations can now have full power over the training that is delivered to their employees and benefit from all of the protection off-the-shelf offers. Whether you choose to create one course that covers everything anyone will ever need to know about your organisation that lasts 12 hours, or 15 bite-size courses that offer relevant training in manageable chunks, is up to you. The icing on the cake is that this all comes as standard to all Safety Media Enterprise clients – there is no additional costs involved and clients will have access to the entire library of off-the-shelf training courses, which currently sits at 115 titles and is growing rapidly.

INDUSTRY VIEW

Toby Roberts (left) is managing director of Safety Media For more information about Safety Media’s Course Creator, visit www.safetymedia.co.uk/course-creator or call +44(0)1745 535000

June 2016

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The debate How does health and safety improve overall business performance?

Benjamin Graham Wilsher

Bali Rakhra

Steve Giblin

Toby Roberts

Marcin Nowak

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W

A

A

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Managing director Zonzini UK

USINESS CAN only be effective if efficiency is maximised, and accidents, damage and poor health hinder such maximisation. Satisfactory working conditions provide benefits of many kinds, with direct benefit to workers themselves in reduced accidents, but also to the firm in avoidance of loss and improved profitability.

With 142 deaths per year and 76,000 reportable injuries for 2014/15, a safe system of work is essential to reduce not only personal injuries and harm to workers’ health, but also material damage. Consequently, it reduces downtime and absenteeism and improves worker satisfaction and motivation.

Keeping workers safe ensures they are healthy and productive and in turn leads to an efficient business with reduced costs arising from compensation claims and retraining of skills resulting in a more reliable service, higher quality output with increased revenue and a good reputation for the firm. Improving health and safety ensures the wellbeing of both the people employed and the organisation itself.

Commercial director CKL Workwear Distribution

Group HSSEQ director Speedy Services

ITH H&S, a penny saved isn’t always a penny earned. The true costs to your business from scrimping on H&S may be higher than you think.

It’s easy to reject an item based on the purchase price alone. But the knock-on costs of that decision are often overlooked, as they are intangible and hard to measure.

Whether you know it or not, you will be paying far more in the long run – on workplace inefficiencies, staff discomfort, injuries, absenteeism, sick pay, compensation claims, replacement costs of cheaper PPE, and so on – without adding any extra value to your business.

This money is far better spent on quality H&S from the outset. Case studies repeatedly show directors who prioritise this reap financial and performance rewards over time.

These include improvements of over 50 per cent in the above areas, as well as in staff retention, a more efficient, motivated workforce, and reduced insurance premiums. So remember, it’s not just the costs, but the value that each item brings.

While it’s difficult to trust in these benefits, in taking this leap of faith, the penny-wise may soon discover they’ve been pound-foolish all along..

GOOD HEALTH and safety culture and performance demonstrate that a business is socially responsible, and takes seriously the welfare of its employees and customers. As a consequence, brand image and value are enhanced and customer loyalty rates and satisfaction improve. A health and safety culture within a business also improves employees’ commitment by building a more competent, healthier workforce, and lowers costs and disruption through reduced accident rates and sickness.

Health and safety is fundamental in demonstrating to customers that a business can help them become safer by offering effective, intelligent solutions for their projects.

Brand and reputation depend on health and safety – if an organisation such as Speedy did not practise this ethos, we would not survive in the competitive world in which we operate. Health and safety forms the nucleus for all of our tenders and bids, as well as being a prerequisite for all construction site entry requirements. In a nutshell, a key part of Speedy’s competitive offering is that health and safety is at the core of our DNA.

INDUSTRY VIEW

INDUSTRY VIEW

bali.rakhra@ckl.uk.com ckl.uk.com/workwear

steve.giblin@speedyservices.com

Director RAMS Boards Ltd

STRONG HEALTH and safety culture is a keystone in successful businesses. By encouraging not only safe working practices but a healthy lifestyle, employers can expect greater productivity from a healthier workforce with potentially greater longevity. Being a responsible employer increases loyalty and therefore skilled employees are less likely to seek new opportunities elsewhere.

But it is not only staff retention and satisfaction that makes health and safety important. By encouraging people to work following correct procedures, the number of days off due to accident or injury is minimised. Safeguarding the business against potential court action should incidents occur, by implementing appropriate and robust reporting and recording systems, allows money to be invested back into the business driving productivity and growth instead of spending thousands in legal proceedings.

The strength of a business is measured in more than just financial terms and a proper approach to health and safety can lead to a multitude of benefits.

INDUSTRY VIEW

S AN engineer for nearly a decade, I was trying to deliver a health and safety (H&S) message in a quality manner. I was thinking about a focal point at my workplace, something that would attract and encourage the workforce constantly to think about H&S. With experience, I have noticed that better H&S behaviours and performance goes hand-in-hand with a quality product. It is one of the small components that contribute to completing projects both on time and within budget. We have developed and brought to market the RAMS Boards, which exceeds industry requirements.

Standard notice boards made on-site by carpenters did not meet the above requirements. They were bland and got lost in dynamic construction sites. I needed something that would clearly state: “We are serious about H&S”.

We would like to invite everyone who needs to present a clear H&S message to H&S Expo on June 21-24 2016, where we will proudly showcase our RAMS Boards.

INDUSTRY VIEW

mnowak@ramsboards.com www.ramsboards.com

sales@safetymedia.co.uk www.safetymedia.co.uk

INDUSTRY VIEW

07921 720350 info@zonzini.co.uk

Managing director Safety Media

Why must innovation lean towards improving industries, rather than functions?

S

O MANY industries have been made sexy in the last few years because of disruptive technology; tech leaders now make a point of publicly predicting which sector will get all the attention next. Transport has seen space holidays, driverless cars and drone couriers. Financial services ventured into digital currency, cloud-only banking and contactless payments. News and media was given 360-degree video capture, virtual reality and peer-topeer live video streaming.

The question we asked ourselves at tillr was: “Why does innovation have to lean towards improving industries, rather than functions?” Facilities

management is present in most industries you can think of, yet the digital products available to people in FM roles have predominantly been built with the industry in mind, not the function. Shouldn’t it be that there is a tool, which is transferrable between all building types, and all sectors’ needs? We thought so, so we built one.

That wasn’t the hard bit though.

The real challenge was understanding each sector’s appetite and commitment to “going digital for FM”.

Anything from an ISO14001 paperless goal, to a highly distributed team and facility portfolio, to an increase in business activity that makes the FM

administration burden unmanageable, can drive the decision to implement software to support the process and activities.

When that decision is reactionary, rather than proactive, mistakes are made. Using technology to improve your business needs to start with an absolute understanding of what

the technology can do for you, your team, your business and your bottom line. Purchasing a product which simply replaces existing routines with partially digitised ones makes no sense. Software should give you something you currently don’t have or can’t do. A digital business solution should advance you.

Good tradespeople blame their tools – for their success. On average, our customers thank us for a 40 per cent reduction in their workload and operational costs.

INDUSTRY VIEW

Paul Romer-Ormiston (left) is co-founder of tillr 020 7194 8415 hello@tillr.io