Craig Swallow, managing director of SoloProtect UK, looks at how changes in sentencing and an organisation’s attitude to safety at board level could define a new sphere of competitive advantage.
How does the fear-factor of being fined influence a business’s attitude to shaping its risk management strategy? Certainly it goes without saying that the vast majority of employers want their staff to be safe – but does a large fine sharpen the mind when considering your list of priorities when running an organisation?
When the sentencing council announced in November 2014 that new sentencing guidelines for corporate manslaughter and health and safety offences were being considered, you’d expect most legal industry workers and health and safety professionals to immediately understand the significance. How this legal process eventually informs the decision making by an employer that is specifying a lone worker solution is probably slightly longer. The significance undoubtedly changes some of the conversations we at SoloProtect will be having with would-be customers – and it’s important that we all understand the sea-change that is on its way.
Industry is generally speaking, very familiar with The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, and any associated breaches being enforced by the HSE. More recently, the introduction of corporate manslaughter legislation has indeed seen the scale of potential fines levied upon organisations increase – assuming a guilty verdict is reached. That said, many of the fines were under the £500,000 suggested threshold recommended – for varying factors such as the size of the business chiefly.
What we’re potentially looking at moving forward however, is the prospect of fines considerably increasing across all areas – affecting both health and safety and corporate manslaughter legislation. The consultation period for the draft guidelines has now been completed, and responses are now being reviewed with a view to informing a more formalised guideline from the sentencing council expected later in the year – several things are expected to change:
We are not legal experts at SoloProtect, so any new legislation change affects how we engage with our clients in exactly the same way. However, our experiences of how organisations’ react to health and safety legislation changes or their implications are both significant and interesting. It’s often the case that these things are rarely at the top of a management agenda until a serious incident occurs – we understand why this is, running a business day to day will always dominate the agenda first and foremost. In the immediate aftermath of an incident however, we often then see a huge amount of activity and information searches – particularly if it involves negative PR, and a falling share-price etc that demands a visible reaction for stakeholders both internally and externally. However as time-passes, negative PR pressure abates and we often find that if no plans are followed through within two months of the incident, often plans can fall by the wayside or just move down the agenda again.
Clearly, switching between knee-jerking around an incident and hoping for the best during the good times is not the best way to run a business – but some would argue it’s been more cost-effective to do that in the past. As these planned changes take place and inform sentencing from around the end of 2015, is there an argument that perhaps the issue will force organisations into two camps? The first containing organisations that embrace the need for change and use what they’re doing as part of a competitive advantage running through their communications, with the latter remaining in the more traditional boom-bust, health and safety behaviours.
Going back to competitive advantages – currently all FTSE 100 companies (many of which comply with ISO 31000) are obliged to report annually about their risk management activities. This includes creating a framework of risk management, having a risk management policy, a risk plan and a risk owner – whether the latter is a person or entity. They have to demonstrate that risk is properly considered and managed. Using reporting like this in relation to making provision for the safety of staff allows a business to show it cares about the health and wellbeing of its employees, and is prepared to invest accordingly. This dramatically reduces the significant financial risk (of large fines etc) that a business carries whilst also having less operational profit drain through de-motivated staff leaving or being absent through stress or illness/replacement staffing/management time spent etc.
Also, as good process typically filters down over time, it’s likely that other companies outside this grouping will seek to replicate this model to inform their own competitive advantage. Organisations in the squeezed middle-ground of a market will invariably look to migrate upwards to elevate their offering over competitors where possible.
In short, 2016 could prove to be an interesting year in health and safety.
By Craig Swallow, Managing Director of SoloProtect UK – a business that helps organisations small and large, to protect their lone workers. e-mail: [email protected]
Tweet: @craigswallow
SoloProtect is Exhibiting at the Safety & Health Expo 16-18 June 2015, Stand L2100.
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