Research carried out by Professor Paul Almond from Reading University has shown evidence that the negativity amongst the general public stems from mainstream media.
Going back to around 2011, there was a negative story about health and safety in the press most weeks. Whilst bad publicity has reduced in recent years, it does still bubble up.
Dr Shaun Lundy, who has been a member of the HSE myth busting panel for the last five years, states that one of the things to emerge from the campaign is the blue tape challenge – looking at the non-regulatory burden on business. Often it is looked upon as creating more work, rather than facilitating the work being done.
There is interesting evidence about perceptions drawn from surveys conducted on social attitudes. The start point of Paul Almond’s research was from 1960 and he tried to track the changes since that time. At that point you’re only getting information in a second-hand, indirect way, but it can be traced.
Paul Almond said: “We look back now and see the 60s as a consensus era. Around the time of the Robens Report everyone understood the importance of health and safety. In some ways attitudes are largely better now than they were, for instance the acceptance of people working at the front line. In the 60s acceptance of things like PPE wasn’t widespread. Nowadays there is better social acceptance of regulation.”
Is there a generational difference? Do older generations romanticise what it was like in the past, and do younger generations accept ways of working because they don’t know any different?
Paul’s research found the older workers had more accepting attitude to towards the idea of risk. There are elements of machismo and traditional ‘just get on with the job’ attitude. Sometimes there is resistance to things seen as mollycoddling, or anything overly restrictive. With younger people there is a sense that it’s not something worth dying for. They are far more used to things like risk assessments and so don’t question as much.
People are more informed about risk now, through training. A lot of college work includes a strong safety element, so it’s seen as part and parcel of what young health and safety professionals expect.
Sarah Edwards CMIOSH, a Chartered Safety and Health Practitioner, said: “At some point safety and risk management processes will become the norm. The older generation have seen the changes and they’ve worked for so long without risk assessments, but at some point that will just be the past.”
Ray King, SHE Manager at St Mowden Properties Plc, commented: “When you get down to site level, the pressure is on getting the job done on time and health & safety is often seen as a burden on that.”
Everything is money orientated. If money was taken totally out of health & safety, it would have a better quality and we wouldn’t be so stressed with financial pressures.
Often people become too focussed on the outcome or result and forget the process. Focussing on outcome can give you a perverse incentive to get somewhere by means which aren’t ideal. You want a workplace where the process matters more than the result. If you do that, usually the outcomes will take care of themselves.
Being able to communication and relate to people in the right way is very powerful. Often health & safety professionals can be perceived very negatively before they have even opened their mouths. Building relationships is key in maintaining the image of the industry.
Credibility plays a big part too. Can you show that you know what you are talking about when you are delivering your message? The advice is also to be more receptive to having debates about health & safety. Often it’s not a bad thing to have people questioning decisions, because it means what is being said is being thought about.
On the panel will be:
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