Back in October of last year, we introduced a full safety management solution made possible by the acquisition of Banyard Solutions by Alcumus. The long term vision we always had was to build out that full suite of safety software products to complement our standalone permit-to-work product, e-permits. The acquisition brought that long term vision into immediate focus. e-permits is … Read More
Managing Permit-to-Work Remotely
On Wednesday 3rd February we ran a webinar focused on managing the permit-to-work process from home. You can access it here. Of course, where building maintenance work needs to be carried out onsite then a competent person needs to be physically present but others in the request/approval/issue process don’t necessarily need to be. The webinar will show how e-permits supports the … Read More
Aligning for Greatness in this Transitional Year
Gazing out over the future, what do you see? Do you see mass unemployment and an opportunity to drive down standards, salaries and benefits on the back of the easy pickings that is a downtrodden pool of desperate people? Does 2021 also afford you the opportunity to depress the working conditions of current employees? Or, do you see a future … Read More
So this is Christmas…
…and what have you done? Another year over, and a new one just begun. A year that began with such optimism, not least on these pages with our 2020 Vision – 3 Reasons to be Cheerful review of UK health and safety, ends with, well, what? Did we just have the worst year ever? It seems that way but, as … Read More
Working to Rules
“People are not risk averse enough for our liking.” So said Joe Smith, Group Health and Safety Manager at Thomas Armstrong (Holdings) Ltd. That’s an attention grabbing comment. Simon Dean responded in a comment that “We need to highlight all the reasons for following the safety rules rather than what will happen if you don’t”. More carrot, less stick? Joe … Read More
Benchmarking Contractor Management
Even before the events of 2020, the role of contractors in the UK economy was a source of debate and commentary. Are businesses becoming increasingly dependent on contractors and, if so, how is compliance with health and safety policies and procedures being delivered? Interestingly, one of the most challenging industry sectors from a lack of skills standpoint is utilities. Even … Read More
e-permits and SafeContractor – Where 2+2 becomes 5
In our last post we covered the full safety management solution that has become a reality following the acquisition of Banyard Solutions by Alcumus. The last post covered each of the components of the solution and how the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. In this and future posts we will look at how individual components can … Read More
The Alcumus e-permits Safety Management Solution
The acquisition of Banyard Solutions by Alcumus earlier in the year has allowed us to move from being the provider of a point solution for permit-to-work to a much broader offering of safety management products based on the Alcumus Info Exchange platform. This post explores each component in detail using video excerpts from a recent webinar. To learn more … Read More
The Mental Health Challenges of Working from Home (part 2 of 2)
In the first part of this two-part post we looked at the evidence for mental wellness suffering among those working from home. We covered the results from two recent surveys which highlighted a ‘disparity’ between the 84% of those experiencing mental health issues and the 9% of managers who were spending the majority of their time supporting mental health issues. … Read More
The Mental Health Challenges of Working from Home (part 1 of 2)
I had dinner with a really good friend a couple of weeks ago. She sat there with tears in her eyes. I know her well enough to be able to ask what was wrong and to get an honest answer. Did she have family problems? Was it something else? No, nothing specific, just “the situation”. Which made me think about … Read More
Does Trust Correlate with Safety Performance for Workers? (part 2 of 2)
In the first part of this two-part post exploring the possible correlation between trust and worker safety, we highlighted how countries with the highest degree of trust (in their fellow citizens and public institutions) also showed the best safety performance among their workers. Equally, those countries with the lowest trust displayed the worst safety performance. Accepting that the normalised worker … Read More
Does Trust Correlate with Safety Performance for Workers? (part 1 of 2)
Can we meaningfully measure ‘trust’ in society and can we correlate that with worker safety? Would a more trusting society lead to better safety performance? One way to do that would be to compare trust metrics and safety performance across multiple countries. Before diving into that, it’s worth examining why we’re asking the question in the first place? In our … Read More
Dynamic Risk Assessments, Face Masks and Roundabouts
In a recent review of e-permits product features our Product Manager, Alan, said he didn’t believe dynamic risk assessments were a good thing (or words to that effect) because any unexpected events should be anticipated ahead of the work being carried out. For example, working at height. High winds are entirely predictable and, as such, should be included in the … Read More
Introducing the Alcumus Solutions
As many of you will have already seen, Banyard Solutions was acquired by Alcumus at the end of June 2020. You’re likely aware of Alcumus as the UK’s leading provider of risk management solutions and may already be a user of one of the main solutions: SafeContractor for supply chain management, verification and contractor management Sypol for COSHH services Information … Read More
HSE-related Parliamentary Questions
The current parliamentary session has seen some interesting written questions from MPs and members of the House of Lords related to health and safety. Most, as you would expect, relate to some aspect of Covid-19 response while others shine a welcome light on other issues. Here’s a selection: Question from Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (8th June 2020) “To ask … Read More
Workplace Fatal Injuries in Great Britain, 2020
The provisional Workplace fatal injuries in Great Britain, 2020 data were released by the HSE last week showing a decline in workplace fatalities from 149 in 2018/19 to 111 in 2019/20. While every one of the 111 fatalities is a tragic loss, the decrease in fatalities from 149, and indeed from the previous 5-year average (an annual average of 143 … Read More
