Developing a Safety Culture
Michael Rabone, HR Manager for The Seafood Restaurant group owned by Rick and Jill Stein in Padstow, Cornwall highlights the steps that can be taken to improve workplace safety standards.
A recent Hot HR contribution from Stephen Hart regarding health and safety in small businesses provided an interesting insight into the things that happen in the real world of business; whether it is a lack of awareness, a lack of understanding, apathy or fear of litigation and reprisals, it is no wonder that talk of workplace safety has most managers running a mile!
The shift towards self governance has created a difficult challenge, especially in small and growing businesses where it can be difficult to assign resources for safety related responsibilities. With a vested interest in people and their wellbeing, if there is a HR department available it is likely that the challenge of workplace safety is destined for that door! Although the thought can be a daunting one, a collective approach involving senior managers, line managers and department representatives is the key to progress.
Whilst it is logical that enforcement agencies focus the majority of their time and resources on those that flout regulation, limited resources can often mean that businesses requiring proactive support, guidance and visits from the local authority are less likely to obtain the advice and guidance that they need, often finding that visits only take place after a serious incident has occurred. This effectively leaves two options; pay for a potentially expensive consultant or take on the challenge in-house.
Having fulfilled the latter, a range of benefits such as an improved safety culture, less risk for staff and customers, reduced risk of litigation and reduced insurance costs have been achieved and it was far more manageable than we’d originally anticipated. We have worked collectively to achieve our goals by ensuring that line managers play a key part in the safety process, working on the basis that we know our business better than anyone else and we are best placed to make improvements to the way we work.
In order to achieve this, there are a number of resources that are available to cut down the workload, many of which can be downloaded from the website of each respective safety organisation.
Effectively engaging directors and senior managers is a great place to start. The Leading Health and Safety at Work publication (created by the HSE and Institute of Directors) provides excellent guidance; a periodic safety report for the board has been a helpful tool to communicate safety matters on a monthly basis.
Building a safety policy is a crucial first step. The HSE provide a simple tool that will help ensure that the most important considerations are reviewed, paving the way for a risk assessment to take place.
Although risk assessment records will be safely stored to demonstrate an intent to comply, it is important that there is a broad understanding amongst managers and staff of what the risk assessment entails. It is best to keep it simple and use a format that everybody (including the HSE) can understand, such as the publication five steps to risk assessment. There are a range of excellent examples for a number of different industries if you need a little inspiration.
Fire safety is an area that is experiencing increasing media scrutiny and a well managed fire safety risk assessment will certainly help with the delivery of important improvements. You may also wish to use the opportunity to get in touch with your local Fire Safety Officer to ask if your tactical/premises details are up to date.
Having taken part in a recent consultation regarding public health and protection (covering food safety, fire safety, health and safety and licensing) it was reassuring to hear that members of each department would welcome a telephone call to provide help and advice and they are very keen to work away from the perception of being wholly and solely focused on enforcement. I appreciate that this may not be the case in every region; however, it is certainly worth the effort as good relationships will be the ultimate key to success.
In addition, local authorities are running more and more safety events on a local and regional basis, providing a great opportunity to meet key individuals that can provide support and guidance relating to safety matters. It may mean that you have to sit through a session about noise pollution or asbestos, however, the networking opportunity is too good to miss!
Although we know that workplace safety isn’t always the most desirable of topics, it affects each and every one of us and therefore a safety committee provides an opportunity to gauge the general feeling towards workplace safety and provides an excellent opportunity for consultation, in addition to an avenue for solving ongoing safety related problems.
I appreciate that fulfilling the action plan resulting from your risk assessment is a task in itself; diarising a quarterly review date for risk assessments and training provides a great reminder, especially if it is tied in with a quarterly safety committee meeting date. An occasional site visit, self-audit or document check doesn’t do any harm either; we know that workplace safety is a difficult topic for some managers and we’d all prefer to find solutions internally, especially when we take into account the number of non-compliance cases that are being publicised in local and national media.
I’d imagine that there are a range of great examples of documentation, training and records that exist (along with a wealth of expertise) and I’d encourage the use of Hot HR to share valuable information and experiences in order to improve our safety standards within our businesses. We’ve made a great deal of progress and we will never take for granted that there is plenty more to do!
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