The global banking and the broader financial services industry leaves the last decade on a much more solid footing than it left the previous decade. Then, the financial crisis had wreaked its chaos but now, as Deloitte notes, “The global banking system is not only bigger and more profitable but also more resilient than at any time in the last … Read More
ISO 45001 – A Panacea for UK Health and Safety or Another Tick Box Exercise?
You probably have heard of ISO 45001 – it is the new standard for occupational health and safety. It is currently in development and is getting increasing amounts of attention. Is it, however, the answer to the UK’s persistent health and safety problem, or is it just a tick box exercise? Will it actually make workplaces safer or will it … Read More
“What’s The ROI Of Your Mother?”
I shamelessly stole that question from US serial entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary’s first business success came when taking over his family’s liquor store and turning it into the online success winelibrary.com, growing annual sales from $3M to $60M through his innovative use of digital marketing and, in particular, social media. If the name Gary Vaynerchuk is new to you then … Read More
British Sugar – Health & Safety Refined
In the last few posts we’ve explored the role of corporate governance in health and safety and explored the impact this has on work related stress as well as the abnormalities of higher employee fatality rates compared with contractors. In the last post we delved into the health and safety related corporate governance of Sainsbury’s. In our experience companies with … Read More
Sainsbury’s – From Audit to Improved Health and Safety Leadership
There are many examples of bad health and safety practice in the UK – you don’t have to search far in local or national news publications to find them. What about good examples, though? One that stands out is Sainsbury’s. We first mentioned this case study in our review of corporate governance back in July and it’s worth discussing in … Read More
It’s Official!! Your Employees Are At Greater Risk Than Your Contractors.
At the beginning of last month we posed the question, “Are Employees Really Safer than Contractors?” Anecdotally it seemed to be the case and the HSE fatality stats for 2015/16 supported the statement. On the face of it. However, digging into the data and removing the agriculture sector yielded a different picture, although an inclusive one due to what appeared … Read More
H.W. Heinrich vs. Sidney Dekker, Seconds Out…
This post is a scene-setter that compares and contrasts the zero harm policies advocated by H.W. Heinrich and the Safety Differently approach of Sidney Dekker who advocates focussing on major incidents and people’s ability to manage risk intuitively rather than worrying about near misses and minor incidents. In future posts we’ll tie the two approaches back to corporate governance as … Read More
The Impact of Corporate Governance on UK Health and Safety
Do British companies take health and safety seriously enough at board level? Do companies believe it requires board level leadership and strategic direction or do they think it’s an operational issue? Are companies serious about effecting cultural change or do they pay lip service and tick boxes when it comes to health and safety? These are all important questions, so … Read More
