6Health, safety –
and productivity?

In 1997, the British Health and Safety Executive, which is responsible for advising on health and safety issues and for administering health and safety law, took as its slogan the motto: Good health is good business.

At first reading, that may not appear to make sense. After all, surely good business depends on:

keeping costs down

maintaining cost-efficient output

avoiding labour disputes

producing what customers want to buy?

So, what do all those have to do with maintaining effective health and safety policies and procedures? Surprisingly, a great deal. As we shall explain in this chapter, a considerable body of criminal and civil law means that failure to provide a safe and healthy working environment for staff is likely to result inexpensive and time-consuming court appearances. Health and safety legislation places significant responsibilities on employers and employees. And, as with other legislation, ignorance of the law is no excuse. Further, a poor health and safety record is likely to bring with it difficulties in recruiting and retaining staff, major losses in productivity and, in cases where external customers have adopted a partnership relationship with suppliers as we described in Chapter 4, the risk of losing potentially profitable contracts.

In order to reflect these issues, this chapter presents four key themes:

the legal framework of health and safety

management and individual rights and responsibilities

the price of failure

the link to productivity.

Each of these themes is the subject of a different section.

THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK

Most readers of this book are likely to associate health and safety legislation with the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act, 1974. Whilst this is certainly the most influential and far-reaching piece of legislation, it was not the first and is definitely not the only one which has an impact on health and safety issues and procedures in an organization.

Other relevant legislation passed before 1974 includes:

The Factories Act, 1937

The Factories Act, 1967

The Offices, Shops and Railway Premises Act, 1963

The Factories (Cleanliness of Walls and Ceilings) Regulations, 1960

The Fire Precautions Act, 1971.

Although most of the provisions of these Acts and regulations have been incorporated into later legislation, some still apply.

Legislation brought in after 1974, mainly intended to clarify some of the general obligations contained in the 1974 Act, includes:

The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations, 1985

The Health and Safety (First Aid) Regulations, 1981

The Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations, 1977

The Noise at Work Regulations, 1989

The Electricity at Work Regulations, 1989

The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations, 1992

The Manual Handling Operations Regulations, 1992

The Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations, 1992

The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations, 1994

The Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations, 1992

The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations, 1992

The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations, 1992.

It is unlikely that, as an operations manager, you will need to be able to quote chapter and verse from all of these. However, the Health and Safety at Work Act, 1974, and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations, 1992, both place considerable obligations on all managers, as we shall see later. Consequently, it is essential that you know and understand those two pieces of legislation. That is the purpose of this section, although we shall refer to some of the other legislation at times, where this gives a more useful or more detailed explanation of the other two pieces.

The Health and Safety at Work Act, 1974

This Act was deliberately drafted to make health and safety central issues for all organizations, regardless of their size, ownership or the nature of their operations, and to make health and safety the responsibility not only of the organization itself, but also of manufacturers, suppliers and staff.

The Act does this by imposing general ‘duties of care’ on various groups of people. We can summarize these duties as follows.

Employers’ duties

Employers are under a general duty to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety and welfare at work of all their employees. This includes:

the provision and maintenance of plant and systems of work that are safe and without risks to health

arrangements for ensuring safety and absence of risks to health in connection with the use, handling, storage and transport of articles and substances

the provision of such information, instruction, training and supervision as is necessary to ensure the health and safety at work of their employees

the maintenance of any place of work under their control in a condition that is safe and without risks to health, and the provision and maintenance of means of access to and from the place of work that are safe and without such risks

the provision and maintenance of a working environment for employees which is safe, without risks to health and with adequate regard to facilities and arrangements for their welfare at work.

Employees’ duties

All employees are under a duty to take reasonable care for the health and safety at work of themselves and any other people who might be affected by their acts or omissions, and to co-operate with their employers and others to enable them to comply with statutory duties and requirements. Additionally, they must not intentionally or recklessly misuse anything provided in the interests of health, safety or welfare in pursuance of any aspect of health and safety law.

Manufacturers’, designers’, importers’ and suppliers’ duties

People in these categories have a duty to:

ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that articles are designed and constructed in such a manner as to be safe and without risks to health when being set, used, cleaned, maintained or stored in ‘reasonably for eseeable circumstances’

ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that substances are safe and without risks to health when being used, handled, processed, stored or transported

ensure that necessary tests and examinations are carried out

provide adequate information about the uses, tests and any conditions which must be observed in the use of articles or substances.

We shall examine what these duties involve in practical terms a little later in this chapter. At this stage, though, it is worth highlighting how frequently the phrase ‘as far as is reasonably practicable’ occurs. In broad terms, this involves balancing the degree of risk to employees against the money, time or effort required to minimize the risk.

However, it would be a mistake to treat the phrase as an escape clause. Traditionally, the courts, even before the passing of the 1974 Act, have taken a hard line on employers’ responsibilities, as the following case illustrates.

The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations, 1992

These regulations impose a duty on all employers to assess what health and safety risks their employees, visitors, the self-employed or employees of another organization working on the site may be exposed to as a result of their work. Having made the assessment, the employer must decide what steps will be taken to protect those concerned, in accordance with relevant health and safety legislation. Where five or more workers are employed, the employers must keep a record of:

the findings of the risk assessment

the actions taken to reduce or remove the risk identified.

In addition, the regulations make employers responsible for:

appointing one or more ‘competent’ persons to help them identify risks and find solutions. these will be people with enough training and experience to enable them to assist the employer properly in a particular area

carrying out health surveillance and keeping health records for each individual if the work situation brings a risk of particular health problems or diseases developing

setting up procedures to be followed in the event of serious and imminent danger and nominating enough ‘competent’ people to implement those procedures if the need arises

informing employees about any health and safety risks which have been identified and the actions being taken to protect them

providing adequate and suitable health and safety training.

Finally, the regulations also spell out the duty on employees to follow health and safety instructions, and to report to the employer any danger oussituations in the workplace or any shortcomings in health and safety arrangements.

RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Employers’ rights and responsibilities

Employers’ rights with respect to health and safety are reasonably self-evident from the summaries of the legislation we have already given. they are entitled to expect that anyone who supplies them with items of equipment or substances for use in the workplace, or who erects or installs equipment, will:

ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the equipment supplied is so designed and constructed as to be safe and without risks to health when properly used or, in the case of a substance, is safe and without risk to health when properly used

carry out or arrange for the carrying out of such testing and examination as may be necessary for the supply of equipment and substances which are safe and without risk to health when properly used

take such steps as may be necessary to make sure that adequate information is available about the use for which equipment or substances have been designed, made and tested, and about any conditions necessary to ensure that, when the equipment or substance is put to that use, it will be safe and without risk to health

in the case of erecting or installing equipment for use at work in any premises, ensure, as far as is reasonably practicable, that nothing about the way it is erected or installed makes it unsafe or a risk to health when properly used.

Employers also have the right to expect that their employees will:

take reasonable care for the health and safety of themselves and of other persons who may be affected by their acts or omissions at work

co-operate as far as is necessary with their employers to enable duties and requirements imposed by the relevant Acts and regulations to be carried out or complied with

avoid reckless or intentional interference with or misuse of anything provided in the interests of health, safety or welfare

follow health and safety instructions

report any dangerous situations in the workplace or shortcomings in health and safety arrangements.

Employers’ responsibilities will take rather longer to explain. The practicalactions required by the various duties imposed on an employer include:

the preparation of a written statement of health and safety policy, if the employer has five or more members of staff. Moreover, the policy must be brought to the attention of every employee and a copy given to contractors or other people who work on the company's premises, either regularly or for long periods. It must include a general statement of policy concerning health and safety, the arrangements in place for implementing the policy, details of any specific hazards and the rules designed to deal with them.

An example of a health and safety policy statement is shown below.

consulting with safety representatives or a safety committee appointed by a recognized trade union (a ‘recognized’ trade union in this context is one with which the employer bargains over matters such as pay and conditions, disciplinary processes or termination of employment).

The position of a safety representative or member-ship of a safety committee confers significant rights on individual employees, which we shall examine later in this section.

informing employees about health and safety. Employers are required to bring to the attention of their employees certain in formation about health and safety law and to provide them with the local addresses of the authorities which enforce that law. In order to do this, they may either display an approved poster in the workplace or supply the irem ployees with an approved leaflet. Posters and leaflets are both produced by the Health and Safety Executive and are available from Her Majesty's Stationery Office.

Leaflets, when used, must be given to every employee, together with the local addresses of the relevant enforcing authority, which may be the Health and Safety Executive in the case of factories, farms or building sites, or the local authority in the case of offices, shops, hotels and catering establishments and leisure activities. they must also be given local addresses of the Health and Safety Executive's Employment Medical Advisory Service. Posters must bere adily accessible and visible and kept in a good, readable condition. The addresses of the enforcing authority and the Employment Medical Advisory Service must be displayed on the poster.

reporting all fatal accidents and cases of major injury (for example, fractures of the skull, spine, arm or leg, amputations, loss of sight, electric shock leading to loss of consciousness) by the quickest available means.

keeping records of reportable injuries for at least three years. Records must include date and time of the accident, where it happened, name and occupation of the injured person, the nature of the injury and how it happened.

making adequate first-aid provision for employees. The Health and Safety (First Aid) Regulations, 1981 leave it up to the employer to decide what is adequate, taking into account such factors as the number of employees, the nature of the work, the location of the worksite and distance frommedical services. As a minimum, though, every employer must keep at least one first-aid box, appoint at least one trained first aider and display at least one notice giving the location of first-aid equipment and the names and locations of first aiders.

In addition, employers have all the responsibilities set out in the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations, 1992, which relate to:

temperature

ventilation

lighting

room size

workstations and seating

floors and traffic routes

windows and ventilators

doors and gates

escalators

toilets

washing facilities

drinking water

rest rooms

facilities for changing and storing clothes.

Employers are also subject to the general duties of care related to the provision and maintenance of plant and systems of work; the use, handling, storage and transport of articles and substances; information, training, instruction and supervision; the maintenance of sites and premises; the provision and maintenance of safe ways into and out of places of work; and of a safe and healthy working environment, to which we have already referred.

The practical implementation of these duties is likely to require, for example:

regular testing and maintenance of equipment

the provision of adequate trolleys for moving goods

dealing with slippery floors, worn carpets or poor drainage

external lighting

clearly marked emergency exits

attention to health and safety during induction training

extractor fans to remove dust

protective guards and shields round machinery

regular checks for obstructions, loose cables, ill-fitting doors or windows.

Individuals’ rights and responsibilities

It is obvious from what we have said so far that individual members of staff have the right to a workplace which is safe, healthy and makes adequate provision for their welfare. In more detail, that includes such things as:

a work place temperature of at least 16°C, except where work is strenuous and involves physical effort, when a temperature of 13°C is considered reasonable

sufficient and suitable lighting, without glare

fresh air

the removal of harmful dust and fumes

rest rooms and rest areas which protect non-smokers from discomfort caused by tobacco smoke

suitable rest facilities for pregnant women and those who are breast feeding

suitable and sufficient facilities for eating meals

hot drinks facilities

access to hot meals, or the means for employees to heat their own food

the provision of personal protective equipment (such as safety helmets, goggles, gloves, boots, protective clothing), without charge

suitable workstations, equipment, work breaks, eye tests and training for users of visual display units (VDUs) and other display screen equipment

suitable and safe electrical equipment and systems

personal ear protection where noise levels exceed 85d(A)

to be briefed on procedures to be followed in case of fire

access to adequate fire-fighting equipment

a workplace and equipment which are in efficient working order and good repair.

These rights are drawn from a cross-section of the regulations we mention edearlier in this chapter and are the entitlement of every employee, regardless of their job, or the size or nature of the organization that employs them.

There are some special rights, in addition, for members of staff who are appointed as safety representatives or members of a safety committee. Such staffare entitled to:

be consulted about the introduction of any measures in the workplace substantially affecting the health and safety of employees

be consulted about the appointment of ‘competent’ persons to identify and solve health and safety risks

be consulted about health and safety training

investigate employee complaints about health, safety or welfare

make representations to the employer about matters affecting health, safety and welfare at work

carry out inspections of the workplace

represent employees in consultation with inspectors from enforcing authorities

receive information from inspectors on matters concerning health, safety and welfare

paid time to carry out these duties

access to information and documentation kept under safety legislation (for example, accident records)

inspect workplace areas at least every three months.

As far as responsibilities are concerned, we have already explored individual obligations to co-operate, not to interfere, to follow instructions and to report dangers or short comings. these apply to all employees, regardless of job, gradeor level in the organization.

In a management text, though, it is worth spending some time exploring the manager's responsibilities. From the viewpoint of health and safety legislation, managers are in the uncomfortable position of needing to fulfil both employers’ and employees’ responsibilities. As representatives of their employer, managers are responsible for contributing to the provision and maintenance of a healthy and safe workplace. As members of the workforce, they are at the same time responsible for reporting dangers and shortcomings.

In the first position, they will be involved in:

monitoring the extent to which the work environment for which they are responsible conforms to the provisions of health and safety legislation

identifying and taking local remedial action

ensuring their own awareness and understanding of their organization's health and safety policy and procedures

briefing and training their staff in that policy and those procedures.

In the second position, they will be a key source of information about dangers and shortcomings which are inherent in the organization's approach to health and safety and which are not susceptible to local correction.

But a manager's responsibilities are wider than those resulting from health and safety legislation. An effective manager should:

deal humanely and appropriately with injured employees. This will involve giving them comfort and support, taking them if possible to somewhere private to await medical attention, perhaps accompanying them to hospital and notifying the next of kin.

manage the rest of the department or section. This will mean: getting people back to work, not so much for reasons of productivity but more to lessen shock by restoring a normal routine; arranging time, space and counselling foranyone who is too shocked to continue working.

learn from the incident. This will involve: identifying the causes of the accident or injury and taking action to ensure that continued working will not lead to its repetition; recording the incident and drawing any necessary conclusions about the prevention of similar events in the future.

take account of safety considerations when planning the process or output volume of an operation.

check the safety status of all operations or activities under their control on a regular basis, perhaps by using a safety checklist.

monitor the provision and use of safety equipment and devices on all activities performed under their supervision.

encourage their staff to report unsafe processes or conditions and either take corrective action or involve others in doing so.

maintain a dialogue with the organization's safety specialist in order to ensure that practices and procedures remain safe.

THE PRICE OF FAILURE

In this section, we shall examine separate costs which between them make up the price of failure to deliver and implement effective health and safety practices:

the legal costs

the improvement costs

the output costs.

The legal costs

It should be remembered that the Health and Safety at Work Act, 1974 is a piece of criminal legislation. In other words, breaches of the Act are a criminal offence and action to deal with them will be taken by the state.

This gives rise to our first legal cost. An employer found guilty of failure to carry out any of the various duties of care imposed by the Act will be liable to:

imprisonment of up to two years

an unlimited fine.

But that is only the start. Managers who fail to implement policies and procedures set up by their employers are also liable under the Act. And, finally, employees who fail to carry out their own health and safety responsibilities as defined by the Act are also legally liable.

Not surprisingly, this principle of ‘joint and several responsibility’ makes the health and safety legislation complicated to enforce, because of the need to establish who was at fault when a breach took place. For example, in a manufacturing environment, an employee on piece-rate may deliberately choose to ignore safety instructions because adherence to them will reduce his output. In such a case, the court will need to decide:

whether the employer made reasonable efforts to ensure that the employee understood and was trained in the relevant safe practices

whether the employee's manager or supervisor made a conscious decision to overlook the employee's failure to follow safe practices

whether those practices gave scope for the employee to ignore or get round them.

But those are only the costs arising from criminal law. There are others resulting from civil law.

The 1974 Act states that failure to comply with any of the duties set out in the Act shall not be taken to confer a right of action in civil proceedings. Consequently, the Act creates no new civil liability.

However, the ordinary action for negligence at common law remains available. In cases where, for example, an employee has been injured as a result of the employer's failure to carry out duties under the Act, the employee will need to prove such failure in order to win civil damages. If the employer has already been convicted under civil law, the employee's claim is almost certain to succeed.

The improvement costs

So far, we have said nothing about the work of health and safety inspectors. Health and safety inspectors, employed by either the Health and Safety Executive or local authorities, depending on industry, are entitled to:

enter any premises at any reasonable time (or at any time if they believe a situation to be dangerous)

require a police officer, or anyone else authorized by the enforcing authority, to accompany them if they believe they are likely to be obstructed

bring with them any equipment or materials

inspect the premises

carry out any investigation or examination they consider necessary, including taking measurements, photographs or any other kind of recording

order that the premises be left undisturbed while they carryout the investigation

take samples of anything found on the premises, or have it dismantled or tested

demand to be shown any book or document they consider necessary, not just those which have to be kept by law

require the use of facilities (such as an office) or obtain any help and assistance they feel they might need

interview and ask questions of anyone they consider appropriate, either alone or in the presence of any witness or other person whom the inspector has invited or allowed to be present. The person interviewed may then be required to sign a declaration of the truth of his or her answers.

In addition, inspectors are also granted any other power necessary for them to enforce the law. It is obvious from this that any organization with a poor safety record or reputation is likely to suffer significant costs arising from the disruption of an inspector's visits. However, the costs go further, because inspectors also have the right to serve improvement and prohibition notices.

Under the 1974 Act, an inspector who is of the opinion that a person is contravening one or more of the statutory provisions relating to health and safety, or has done so in the past and is likely to do so again, is entitled to serve an improvement notice requiring the person concerned to put matters right within the period specified in the notice.

Further, if an inspector is of the opinion that activities as they are carried on, or about to be carried on, involve a risk of serious personal injury, the inspector is entitled to serve a prohibition notice on the person controlling those activities, giving the inspector's reasons for considering them unsafe but, more importantly from a cost viewpoint, requiring them to cease immediately.

The output costs

The previous paragraph in fact explains the first of our output costs. In simple terms, health and safety legislation gives inspectors the right to shut down any activity they consider to be seriously unsafe – with obvious implications for output. But There are other output costs:

the cost of time off work for sick or injured employees

the cost of damaged or lost production

the potential costs of damaged equipment

the costs of rectification.

Failure to take health and safety seriously is an expensive business! So ask yourself:

Am I familiar with the health and safety practices and procedures which my employer has laid down relevant to my staff?

Do I enforce or ignore them?

Do I support health and safety training, or treat it as unimportant?

How much attention do I pay to my operation's health and safety record?

Am I overlooking any trends or particular hazards?

How much output do I lose as a result of poor health and safety?

Your answers to those questions may well cause some discomfort!

THE LINK TO PRODUCTIVITY

The emphasis of this chapter so far has been on legal, practical and financial considerations. In this final section, we shall examine the impact of health and safety on people issues and the consequences for productivity. We can separate the issues into two categories:

individual reactions

union reactions.

Individual reactions

There is no absolutely right answer to that question. It will depend on, amongstother things:

the unemployment rate in the area

the wider reputation of both businesses

the sophistication of the local workforce

how stable or profitable each business is perceived to be.

Nevertheless, we do believe that There is a link between health and safety on the one h and and ease of recruiting staff on the other. To start with, as was explained earlier in this chapter, an organization which pays attention to health and safety is conveying a more general message about the way it looks after its people. That message is that the organization cares for its staff. A willingness to provide comfortable rest areas, effective training, to evaluate and minimize risks and, overall, to treat staff as valuable resources, has wider implications in terms of making the organization ‘a business where people matter’.

Such a reputation in the community may not be enough to compensate for uncompetitively low wage rates. Nevertheless, as any management text book will tell you, the combination of adequate salaries, rewarding work and a comfortable work environment will do more to attract and retain staff than a big salary alone. It is also worth remembering that the current economic climate allows little scope for organizations to pay staff over the odds. So, since careful attention to staff health, safety and welfare is a legal requirement, it would seem perverse to incur costs by breaching the law – and have to pay staff extra for the privilege! then how does health and safety impact on an organization's actual workforce? Of course, productivity falls when an employee is injured. But it goes further than that. In organizations where ill-health, accidents and injuries are commonplace:

Employers lose the confidence of the workforce.

Managers lose the confidence of the workforce.

Staff are more concerned about their own well-being than they are about that of the business.

Equally, where the organization and its managers are careful about health, safety and welfare issues, the opposite applies. It is also important to recognize the effect on colleagues of an injury or accident to a member of staff. Other employees working next to the victim, or who are on close personal terms with the victim, may need:

treating for shock

time off work to recover

transporting home.

Union issues

In the 1990s the relationship between employers and unions has, in many organizations, changed from one of confrontation to one of co-operation. It is frequent nowadays to see unions and management working together to improve productivity and efficiency, cut costs, develop more successful working practices and, there by, to make the organization more effective and see off the competition.

Nevertheless, as is the case with individual employees, such a constructive relationship between employers and unions is dependent on a high degree of trust and a common purpose. Unions, rightly, see their primary responsibility being to safeguard their members. An important part of that responsibility is to look after their members’ health, safety and welfare. Consequently, employers who choose to ignore their duties under health and safety legislation will find it difficult or impossible to establish common cause with recognized unions in the workplace.

We have already referred to a recognized union's right to nominate safety representatives, and the right of those representatives to request the formationof a safety committee. The latter is likely to be made up of:

union representatives

management representatives

ex-officio members, possibly in the form of technical specialists.

Those rights are only legally supported in organizations which recognize a trade union. However, There is nothing to stop a non-union organization from seeking safety representatives from its workforce, nor from forming a safety committee.

In a unionized workplace, it is important to recognize the contribution which a safety committee can potentially make. With union- management relationships increasingly taking on the nature of joint problem-solving, a safety committee must, to achieve its potential, be seen as a problem-solving forum. It should not be seen as a forum for bargaining or negotiation, but rather as some where for all those involved to seek the best ways in which the employer can ensure that employees’ health and safety is safeguarded.