In January, 120 CEOs within the construction industry came together to discuss the ever-present problem of health, at the Health in Construction Leadership Group, chaired by Clive Johnson, Land Securities.
SHP’s Roz Sanderson spoke to Judith Hackitt CBE, Chair of the HSE, Steve Hails and Andrew Wolstenholme from Crossrail and Simon Clark an electrician who was diagnosed with mesothelioma; to find out more about their thoughts on the importance of health.
In this first interview, Roz asks Judith her greatest achievements as Chair of HSE and the biggest health issues facing construction now and in the future.
In your time as Chair at the HSE what is your greatest achievement been, in terms of health issues?
In terms of health issues I think we have made a change to the way people see asbestos. I think we recognise the big issue with people thinking that it is a problem of the past not the present and the campaigns we have run have been really quite powerful in terms of getting people to realise that it’s still out there and it’s still a problem.
I also think that the work we have done in terms of getting people to understand just how big this burden of work-related health is has been tremendously important and, it might sound trite to say it but it is true: you don’t know the size of the problem until you tackle it. When you look at work-related health against the toll that safety has, you just think: “My god, we have to tackle this”.
We have seen many CEOs of large companies here at the Health in Construction Leadership Group, but how do we get smaller companies on board?
That’s the bit where we can learn from the progress we have made on safety. So, how have we made so much progress with safety in construction? We have done it by getting the big companies to create a different environment; the small companies get pulled into that and it’s a really powerful way to reach them, when they are influenced by the people who pay them.
It becomes part of the ethos of working for the bigger contractors, and part of successfully bidding for jobs, which is why it’s so important to get the bigger companies to lead the way.
So, in that sense – tackling this as we have done with safety makes sense.
In some other ways it requires a different approach because when you start to make a difference with safety you can start to measure your improvement; comparing this year vs last, this month vs last, and you can’t do that in the same way with health.
With health, you can make a change and you may not see the benefit for 20 or 30 years, so the measures that people have for building that confidence, that what they are doing is making a difference and is worthwhile have got to be thought about a lot more.
For the people who you were addressing today, that often come down to profit. If they won’t see the effect for 20 years do you think they will see the value?
It’s easy to say yes, you have to turn it into monetary value. But I think we have heard some of the arguments for it here at the Health in Construction Leadership Group.
If we want to attract people to work in this industry we have to make it an attractive industry to work in. Can we attach a monetary value to that?
If I were 20 or 25 and looking to work in an industry, would I go into one where it was known that there was serious risk to my life as a result of working there against one where the was not? No, I wouldn’t.
There’s a really powerful reason for doing something about this which you can’t easily attach a monetary value to. If they tackle this in the right way there will be short term gains as well as the long term gains.
Just take the size of the cost of short term ill health and absenteeism through poor health. If you can make a dent in that – that is real hard cash in the bank and greater productivity – a massive prize to go after.
What do you hope will be the outcome of this event in the next 15 years?
The very fact that this event has happened gives me real confidence that this sector is ready to take on this issue. I think they can lead the way, not just in the UK but I think this industry sector will lead as an example to other sectors.
One of the greatest things for me in my time as Chair has been telling the rest of the world how well we are doing on safety, using the Olympics as an example. I hope my successor will be able to tell the world that we know how to tackle health. I don’t think any other country in the world has tackled this yet either. If we can unlock the key to some of that, we could become world leaders in work related health, just as we already are with safety.
Finally, what will be the next big topic in occupational health?
For this sector, I think it’s already here and I think it’s silica. I don’t think it’s taken seriously enough. The solutions are already there. It’s not an unknown, but getting people to recognise the dangers, in the way they currently recognise the dangers of asbestos – that’s the next challenge.
In this episode of the Safety & Health Podcast, ‘Burnout, stress and being human’, Heather Beach is joined by Stacy Thomson to discuss burnout, perfectionism and how to deal with burnout as an individual, as management and as an organisation.
We provide an insight on how to tackle burnout and why mental health is such a taboo subject, particularly in the workplace.
