The last ten years have clearly seen the lifting of the taboo around mental health, including mental well-being in the workplace and, more generally, mental health in society and across many demographics. There is more to do, but the change has been demonstrable. The 2017 Thriving at Work Stevenson/Farmer review on mental health and employees put the cost of poor … Read More
Let’s Hope this Post Helps You Sleep
It’s not every health and safety blog post that links Baader-Meinhof, Inspector Morse and has the express intent of helping you sleep, but this one does. The post’s genesis is in the seeming deluge of articles on driver safety over the past few weeks. Driver safety is an extremely important topic with the focus here being on driving for work … Read More
Megatrends, Wellness and Safety
Buried in our Halloween post were some wellness and safety ideas that came out of the latest Euromonitor International megatrends analysis and which deserve expansion here. Firstly, the megatrends analysis. What is it? It’s a lifestyle survey of 1,000+ people in each of 40 countries, conducted annually and aimed at identifying the megatrends shaping consumer markets. These megatrends are driven … Read More
Halloween, Megatrends and Wellness
It’s Halloween! The day of ghosts and ghouls, apple-bobbing and trick or treating. It’s actually ‘New Year’s Eve’ from ancient Celtic times and a day when the worlds of the dead and the alive came together, a day when the Druids (the Celtic Priests) were better able to predict the future because of the presence of the dead. The origins … Read More
The Rise of the Machines: The Good, The Bad and the Grey Goo
The IOSH Future Leader Conference is taking place on November 5th and includes a session titled ‘Robots: meet your new colleagues’, by health and safety consultant Bridget Leathley. This should be a really interesting examination of the benefits that robots and cobots (robot co-workers) can bring to occupational health and safety. The Future Leaders Conference is aimed at those new … Read More
Which Camp Are YOU In?
Have you chosen sides in the Heinrich/Dekker debate yet? Zero Harm vs. Safety Differently? Focussing on the incident/accident data of what’s gone wrong rather than working on what’s gone right? People are the problem vs. people are the solution? I do hope not because the chances are that they’re both right and that breaking through the statistical plateau (that is … Read More
Fatigue, Driving and Regulations
During my mother-in-law’s last few years of failing health, I had the pleasure of meeting one of her home care helpers. I watched her bubbly personality cook, tidy-up and put a smile on a frail old lady – all in her 15-20 minute allowed visit time. As she dashed for the door, I asked her where she was going next … Read More
Safety and Business Performance – Correlation and Causality
This post continues our examination of what it takes to make safety a keystone habit within a business, thereby, driving improved business performance while improving worker safety. Note that in this scenario ‘improved business performance’ means significantly outperforming competitors in a sustained manner over a period of several years. We’re not talking a few percentage points improvement in productivity from … Read More
Making Safety a Keystone Habit
The business benefits of good safety practices are clear and obvious. As the HSE lists them: Reduced absenteeism Staff retention Brand reputation protection Increased productivity and profits Reduced insurance and legal costs But, if I’m a Board member of a Forbes 2000 company, is that going to grab my attention? I don’t think so. They’re nice benefits and, of course, … Read More
The Human Oil in the Process Engine
Today started with a review of Staying Alive: Preventing Serious Injury and Fatalities while Working at Height All-Party Parliamentary Group on Working at Height from February 2019. This on the back of the recent headlines about the upward trend of worker fatalities, particularly those arising from ‘falls from a height’, and our subsequent deeper dive into the historical statistical trends. … Read More
Why Cycle to Work Day is Important for Workplace Safety
Thursday 8th August is Cycle to Work Day in the UK. What has this got to do with safety in the workplace? Quite a lot actually. A 2018 Decathlon survey of more than 7,600 UK adults found that only 7% currently cycle to work. For the reader musing that you’re more likely to get killed cycling to work than through … Read More
2018/19 Workplace Fatalities – Why Change is Imperative
The provisional Workplace fatal injuries in Great Britain, 2019 statistics have been published by the HSE. The resulting headlines thus far have been focused on the increase in workplace fatalities (147 in 2018/19p vs. 141 in 2017/18) with ‘workers falling from height’ being the major cause of fatal injuries at 40 and ‘being struck by a moving vehicle’ the next … Read More
