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The safety professional and managing business risks
Allan St.John Holt
Head of Safety
Royal Mail Group
On the record
Don’t believe all you read in the papers!
Royal Mail is doing fine!
We deal well with the competition…
On the record
•Accidents: RIDDOR
Per 1000 SIP
2001 – 2002
43,530 9,327 194.4
2002 – 2003
40,525 Down 6.9%
9,185 185.7
2003 – 2004
35,948 Down 11.3%
7,273 172.7
Where does health and safety fit into business risk management?
• One of the major risk areas for any business
• Legal requirement, not just financial risk
• Solutions readily available
• Competence path for practitioners
• Mainstay of corporate governance
• Links to other core risk areas – finance, brand/reputation, emergency planning, other regulated areas
• Royal Mail Group Safety inputs into:
Corporate Risk Management Committee and Risk Register
Corporate Governance Committee
CSR – the next step forwards:
•Safety
•Health
•Environment
•Social policy
•Diversity / inclusion
What is CSR?
Short definition: “Doing the right thing for our people, our business and the communities we operate in”.
We do the right thing because our
CUSTOMERS want to buy from companies that share their values
EMPLOYEES want to work for companies that provide a healthy and safe environment and whose values align to theirs
COMMUNITIES want companies that create the incomes, the jobs and contribute to the cohesion that builds neighbourhoods where people want to live and work
Benefits of the CSR approachJoining the dots –
• Where does the management of stress fit in?
• Where does rehabilitation fit in to your planning?
• Is sickness absence just a health issue?
• Is recruitment just an HR issue?
The benefits include an integrated approach and joined up strategies
•Plus an improved cultural awareness in the business
•Ability to think outside the pigeonholes
•Silo mentality starting to break down
•Managers question the ‘business as usual’ philosophy
Benefits of the CSR approach• Social policy: Recruiting from socially excluded groups: - A potential candidate pool
of over 1 million people has been identified from disadvantaged facets of society that include the homeless, those with learning disabilities and ex-service personnel, from which the best candidates can be chosen.
Payroll giving - at present our employees voluntarily give around £2.3 million pounds annually.
‘Royal Mail Cares’ programme to facilitate and support business-led employee volunteering.
The charitable donations process is being rationalised with an objective process to ensure that all donations benefit a number of stakeholders in a win: win scenario for the business, employees, recipient and community.
The safety challenges for management – the big three hot buttons•The moral issue
Intangibles – brand damage
Loss of reputation
Weakened position with business partners
Seen to be poor at managing
Morale of the workforce
Problems recruiting
The challenges for management
•The cost – some of it
Royal Mail compensation p.a £14 million
Solicitors fees £4.5 million
Accident absence at £70 a day £15 million
- all straight off the bottom line
Insured costscovering injury,
ill health, damage
Product and material damageAction by Regulator
Plant and building damageLegal costs
Expenditure on emergency suppliesCleaning up
Production delaysOvertime working
and temporary labourInvestigation time
Supervisors’ time divertedClerical effort
FinesLoss of expertise/experience
Product and material damageAction by Regulator
Plant and building damageLegal costs
Expenditure on emergency suppliesCleaning up
Production delaysOvertime working
and temporary labourInvestigation time
Supervisors’ time divertedClerical effort
FinesLoss of expertise/experience
Uninsured costsUninsured costs
The challenges for management
•The lawTougher is the trend
Penalties for negligent managers are growing
Now seeking fines appropriate to turnover
Corporate killing laws soon in the UK
Bill Callaghan, Chairman HSC:“If you cannot manage health and safety, then you cannot manage… there is no excuse for those at the top to be ignorant of their responsibilities or to fail to take effective action….. inspectors must consider carefully the role of individual managers and directors when serious failures do occur – and ensure that appropriate action is taken against them if the evidence justifies it”
28 January 2002
Bridgend – an injury waiting to happen
•Tolerance of rule breaches
•Inadequate risk assessment
= unsafe system permitted
•Failure to act on warning signs
So what is the professional analysis?
The start point:
Recognition of the contribution
of secondary causes
Disaster: Herald of Free Enterprise
Primary cause: Bow doors not closed before leaving
Secondary causes (selected):No effective reporting system to check
this was done - system
Management attitudes – leadership, values
Tolerated work practices - accountability
People tend to notice management errors during public enquiries People tend to notice management errors during public enquiries
•“A full investigation into the circumstances of the disaster leads inexorably to the conclusion that the underlying or cardinal faults lay higher up in the organisation.
Herald of Free Enterprise Enquiry
•“The failure on the part of the management to give proper and clear direction was a contributory cause of the disaster”
Disaster: Kings Cross fire
Primary cause: Cigarette dropped on grease beneath escalator
Secondary causes (selected):Poor cleaning of escalator - system
Wooden escalator - equipment
Equipment failure – design/maintenance
Poor training of staff – policy & ownership
Culture - accountability
•Bottom line points:Finding primary causes usually doesn’t address the issues
Dealing with secondary causes is difficult – but:
The law is increasingly concerned with secondary causes
A structured, audited safety management programme is more likely to succeed than anything else
Increasingly, health and the environment are being addressed in the same way
…………………………………………… BUT (#2) -
.. there’s always someone just trying to help…
.. happy to take that little extra load
.. and cram a few more in!
•DEPLOYMENT IS THE KEY ISSUE
Some ideas that work:
•Accountability
•Policy, practice and the ‘safety culture’
•Testing opinions
•KPIs beyond accidents
•Consulting the workforce
•Transparency -the annual SH&E report –
And then - the annual CSR Report!
On the record
Look for our new CSR annual report 2003/2004 at
www.royalmailgroup.com
Your complaints or comments are very welcome: