Naked Safety

Exploring The Dynamics of Safety in a Fast-Changing World

Andrew Sharman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781317937463
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Industrial Health & Safety
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Workplace safety has never been seen as sexy, clever or cool.

Fraught with legislative hurdles, ambiguous policy and complex procedures, despite its alleged importance safety has lost its way. For many organisations safety is seen as burdensome and bureaucratic and has become little more than paperwork and performance charts: things done in fear of persecution – from the authorities, the media or the civil arena – rather than doing the right thing.

To change the game and build real risk literacy, it's vital to make things easier, to strip things back to basics and think again about how we work. This is Naked Safety.

Encouraging the reader to step outside their comfort zone, this book demystifies workplace safety, challenging traditional views and catalysing critical thought and high-impact action.

With narratives on the central pillars of workplace safety including risk management; legal frameworks; performance; governance; leadership and culture, as well as perspectives on key issues that affect safety – and business – more broadly, such as worker wellbeing; employee engagement; the impact of globalisation; corporate social responsibility; sustainability and the role of the safety practitioner, Naked Safety features over 100 actions to bring about positive, sustainable organisational change.

This book is a useful, multi-purpose guide for professionals; an indispensable toolkit for practitioners, business leaders, and anyone with an interest in workplace risk and Occupational Safety and Health. Let's get Naked!

Part 1
Stripping back

1
Introduction

Recent research by the International Labor Organization (ILO) – a specialised United Nations agency comprising of 187 member countries – suggests that there are around 2.3 million deaths around the world each year as a result of occupational accidents or diseases relating to the workplace.

Assuming the ILO’s figures are correct, that would mean that every 15 seconds 153 workers have a work-related accident – and, within in that same 15 seconds, one will result in a fatality.

However, in most developing countries health and safety reporting is limited, and, as a result, it’s difficult to garner accurate details about accidents, deaths and illnesses – so, the likelihood is that this figure is actually a significant underestimate.

Is ‘good safety good business’?

Beyond the obvious human tragedy, there is also a huge economic cost. The ILO estimate that the average cost of workplace accidents is around 4 per cent of the global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – an estimated 2.8 trillion US Dollars.

In Great Britain, the workplace regulator, the Health & Safety Executive (HSE), calculates that the annual cost of workplace accidents, injuries and work-related ill-health is around £13.8 billion.

With statistics like these, it is surprising that the idea that ‘good safety is good business’ is slow to resonate.

An extensive study by The World Economic Forum recently discovered that there is a definite link between ‘organisational competitiveness and workplace health and safety’ – that low accident rates make for higher productivity.

The study concludes by stating that, within organisations, safety should be seen as a ‘strategic asset’ – and recognised as central to fostering competitiveness and innovative capacities.

As well as demonstrably increasing productivity, competency levels and commitment in workers within an organisation, good safety also enhances reputation and adds brand value.

If this wasn’t reason enough for organisations to adopt more wide-reaching safety measures, the incentives for not doing so are also slowly eroding – with regulators in successive states around the world now beginning to clamp down on poor safety standards.

Though, in theory, penalties have been in place to stop reckless managers and business leaders from eschewing safety practices within organisations for many years – traditionally, bad practice and negligence has rarely resulted in meaningful legal action for those at the top.

However, in many countries there has been something of a sea change of late. In Britain, for example, in the 12-month period from April 2015 to March 2016, 46 business leaders and company directors were prosecuted by the HSE – of which, 12 were summarily handed prison sentences.

Fines for safety offences have also increased by around 43 per cent over the same period – and, in Britain, are now regularly hitting the £1 million mark, even for non-fatal accidents.

Relocation, relocation, relocation

However, tightening of regulations and stricter enforcement has had a further side-effect. Studies by the World Health Organization (WHO, 1999) indicate that to reduce costs – and, perhaps, to side-step potential legal complications – many large organisations are simply relocating their operations to developing countries – which are now home to a staggering 75 per cent of the global workforce.

Without a doubt, deaths and injuries already take a particularly heavy toll in developing countries, where large numbers of workers are concentrated in primary and extractive activities, such as agriculture, fishing, logging and mining – the most hazardous industries.

The ILO reports: “Agriculture is one of the most hazardous occupations worldwide. An estimated 1.3 billion workers are engaged in agricultural production worldwide – half of the total world labour force.”

The ongoing relocation of big business has meant that the global workforce is in a state of flux. As barriers to trade and movement of products and supplies have fallen, this has increased the opportunities for transience as workers cross borders in search of work, causing an exponential rise in health, safety and security challenges.

As the proportion of migrant workers within the labour force continues to grow, many workplaces are becoming populated by individuals from many diverse backgrounds – which increases propensity for accidents due to cultural mis understandings and poor communication. For example, recent research (Horck, 2006) reveals that misunderstandings owing to cultural differences play a significant role in approximately 80 per cent of maritime accidents.

Cultural differences have also lead to an increased Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) risk, due to the fact that in multicultural work teams, individual perceptions of what is ‘safe’ often radically differ.

Due to the changes in the nature of the workplace, socio-economics and regulatory systems, plus demographic developments and labour market shifts, the risk-based safety approach – advocated by the likes of Beck, Dekker, Reason and also in my own previous books – that has historically been the cornerstone of the world’s OSH management is now being reconsidered.

The uncertain present and unpredictable future

Previously unknown levels of uncertainty and unpredictability haunt the global economy – and this has negatively impacted OSH throughout the world. Most organisations now face a dilemma over how best to maintain first-rate safety systems whilst endeavouring to reduce spiralling costs.

The ongoing global economic crisis has added to these challenges, simultaneously placing pressure on workers, families and organisations and undermining established patterns of behaviour, prevention systems, programmes and practices.

In such challenging times, safety is often side-lined and reduced to little more than an ‘add-on’ activity – even despite the fact that most academic and organisational research makes it clear that safety, when pursued proactively, has the power to drive and deliver competitive advantage – and reduce operational costs.

The move to make ‘good safety’ synonymous with ‘good business’ had made some progress following the publication of the high-profile Cullen Reports,¹ but in an uncertain climate, many organisations feel as though they are caught in a perfect storm – with barrage of potential hazards coming from multiple directions.

In addition to potential financial and reputational worries, in recent years, we have seen epidemics (such as the SARS virus), pandemics (like swine and avian ’flu), natural disasters (such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis), man-made disasters (from oil spills to factory collapses), product recalls (from everything from cars to children’s toys to baby milk) and workplace accidents – all of which have the potential to bring organisations to a shuddering halt.

Though all the above events may inversely affect organisations, they have all helped ferment the idea of organisational safety, contributed to the dialogue and allowed it to permeate culture.

However, even despite this, many organisations have markedly different ideas about what ‘safety’ actually is. Perhaps this is unsurprising. In a marketplace dominated by multinational corporations, is it possible to agree on a definition? Considering the variety of factors involved – including geography, workplace demographics, local culture, values, beliefs and supply-chain infrastructures – how could one realistically forge a single ‘catch-all’ safety standard?

Societal fear and the erosion of real safety

There has also been a pronounced backlash against the safety industry recently. Anger directed at what is pejoratively termed ‘the nanny state’ has been luridly illustrated with examples of ‘safety’ overcomplicating things and getting in the way of constructive or innocuous activities.

Popular examples of such things as banning yo-yos from schools, outlawing hanging baskets and removing knives from restaurant kitchens, have fed a common outrage concerning lost liberties and caused much derisive talk of ‘health and safety gone mad’.

With these sorts of stories making regular newspaper headlines, it’s little surprise that health and safety has become a major concern for many people and organisations. More now than ever before, there is an overriding fear that safety regulation has the power to interfere with anything it turns its sights on – and, if it suits its purposes, stop it in its tracks.

In Culture of Fear: Risk-taking and the Morality of Low Expectation (2007), sociologist Frank Furedi states that: “fear has become an ever-expanding part of life in the twenty-first century”. I think he’s dead right.

Furedi believes that, despite enjoying unprecedented levels of safety and security, modern society is subjugated by an all-encompassing narrative of fear, which has led to a culture that routinely inflates the dangers and risks of the general population. He argues that fear shifts easily from one problem to the next

without there being a necessity for causal or logical connection. It becomes a sort of transitory, self-fulfilling aspect of modern life that is constantly sustained by a culture that is anxious about change and uncertainty – and continually chooses to anticipate the worst possible outcome.

As a consequence, hesitation and caution are seen as virtues and any risk-taking behaviour looks like reckless and irresponsible behaviour.

Under the auspices of ‘risk management’, fear becomes institutionalised and the fear response becomes further pronounced – transforming into ‘risk aversion’. The need to eliminate risk starts to fixate business leaders and safety teams until it entirely dominates their collective psyches.

However, there is a real danger here. That danger is that people, society and organisations will begin to turn away from occupational safety and risk management due to misrepresentative media reporting.

The depiction of health and safety as an intrusive and disruptive waste of time means that safety ideals are often misunderstood – and, indeed, often maligned. Consequently, with focus on growing development, neoliberal policy agendas around the world have encouraged the removal of the ‘burdens of bureaucracy’ and other organisational restrictions. In some jurisdictions, the monitoring of safety standards has been drastically cut back or – more worryingly – replaced by ‘voluntary’ industry compliance.

But we cannot blame media spin and social misperceptions for everything. I can’t help but feel that there has also been a push in the wrong direction from within organisations too. Has the lack of understanding of what safety really is about from operational managers and leaders actually encouraged those charged with building efficient health and safety management systems and improving performance to shroud what they do in mystery – effectively turning the discipline and activities into a black art? As this ‘stealth and safety’ takes hold, more managers turn their backs on getting involved, leaving things to the ‘technical expert’ and instead focusing on what they know best – their own domain or area of responsibility.

Encouraging a different perspective

To truly understand the issues around safety, it is important to look at the broader organisational culture, the current operating climate, the influence of global geographies, communities and psychologies.

It is also essential to engage with people and to keep seeking first-hand knowledge. After all, it is only when safety practitioners have developed ‘risk curiosity’ that they stand any chance of attaining ‘risk literacy’.

Despite some popular opposition in the media, safety is not broken. It is not a case of throwing it all out and starting again. Indeed, some incredible progress has been achieved in recent years – with many organisations, industries and countries continuing to build, develop and share knowledge. The focus on safety is continuing to sharpen.

The purpose of this book is not to set out a spirited defence of organisational health and safety. Neither does it exist to instruct the reader on how to build a safety management system. Nor is it a list of regulatory requirements, or a ‘howto’ guide on doing risk assessment or accident investigation.

This book is fundamentally concerned with encouraging people to consider risks from different perspectives – and to promote discussion and ‘positive disruption’ within the field of workplace Occupational Safety and Health.

It seeks to challenge the perceived wisdom on safety, spark discussion and debate – and shine a light on new ways to consider the issues around organisational safety.

The challenge for anyone working in the safety sphere today is always to find ways, not only to dispel the myths, but also confront the apathy that often grows up around the subject. Both of which often result in inertia.

If progress is to be made, safety professionals need to operate in a more forward-thinking and inclusive way, with a view to building working environments where safety is viewed as an immutable condition of the successful completion of tasks – rather than a potential bonus or an orbiting added-extra.

Too many safety practitioners spend their time debating the merits of different approaches and systems, instead of focusing on the most appropriate strategy based on an individual organisation’s maturity, industry, function and culture.

Creating safety and getting naked

In my previous book From Accidents to Zero I introduced the concept of creating safety. This notion repositions safety as an inputs-focused activity rather than a dogmatic fascination with the avoidance of adverse events and the reduction of accident rates.

To truly create safety, and to build real risk literacy, it is vital to make things easier, to strip what we do back to founding principles, establish an ‘open source’ mentality, keep safety systems simple and appropriate – and invite contributions from everyone. This is what is meant by Naked Safety.

So, this book will strip back the key topics related to workplace safety, providing you with a range of different perspectives to consider. You’ll find narratives on the central pillars of health and safety, including risk management; legal frameworks; performance; governance; leadership; and culture, as well as perspectives on key issues that affect health and safety – and business – more broadly. These chapters encompass elements such as worker wellbeing; employee engagement; the impact of globalisation; corporate social responsibility; sustainability; and the role of the health and safety practitioner.

The chap...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• About the author
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• PART 1 Stripping back
• PART 2 Getting down to business
• PART 3 Looking forward
• By the same author
• Bibliography
• Index