Board involvement
There has been a major shift in recent years. In most companies board members are now actively engaged in managing health and safety, taking ownership of risks, setting targets and monitoring progress. This is important in preventing harm to employees, but also vital in protecting the company and board members from legal action. Recently, the offence of corporate manslaughter was brought in. But more significantly, imprisonment is now an option for health and safety offences committed by individuals. Failing to engage actively with health and safety puts you at risk.
Help with target setting
Our survey showed that companies want support with setting and monitoring meaningful targets - a key to board control. EEF will shortly launch a scorecard to help boards identify an effective set of measures and then monitor progress against them using an eye-catching traffic light scheme. It will be made available, free of charge, to EEF members.
Keeping up to date
Companies have the foundations of health and safety management, such as a policy and risk assessment in place. However there remain issues about keeping these current. Paperwork that no longer reflects conditions makes companies and individuals vulnerable to legal action should an incident occur. You should set a schedule for reviewing and updating documents, amending them sooner if there is a significant change in working arrangements.
Competent advice
Large companies tend to have their own in-house advisers and staff carrying out health surveillance to detect early signs of ill health. Smaller companies tend to rely upon specialist external providers, such as EEF, for these services.
Confidence in regulation
Support for health and safety requirements and regulators remains relatively high, but there has been a notable drop since last year’s survey. EEF will continue to press government to cut unnecessary bureaucracy and to address the perception that requirements are biased against small companies.
Benchmarking
A significant proportion of companies, particularly larger ones, carry out health and safety benchmarking. Some restrict this to comparison of outcomes such as accident rates, but a significant number are now benchmarking processes, such as how they conduct monitoring or risk assessment. Comparing processes gives an excellent chance to learn from one another’s experiences of what does and doesn’t work in practice. EEF is actively looking at ways to support members in benchmarking.