Global Health and Safety - Possibility or pipedream?

David Towlson looks at whether it’s possible for a global organisation to have a unified health and safety culture and to achieve harmonisation, despite global differences in legislation, cultures and language

Can a global organisation have a unified health and safety culture? The simple answer to this would probably be no. However, if the question was rephrased as ‘can a global organisation have a unified health and safety approach’, the answer would be, yes, most definitely, given time. According to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), a positive health and safety culture can be developed by giving attention to the four “C”s: competence, control, co-operation and communication.

When many international companies seek to foster a homogeneous health and safety culture, they discover that the chief barriers are not, as expected, differences in legislation, culture or language. The biggest hurdle is more likely to be the typical pattern of growth by acquisition. As they expand, companies often acquire huge numbers of disparate subsidiaries, all with different safety cultures. These companies may fear or resent the imposition of ideas, rules and procedures from the acquiring company. Blanket policies or directives may be met with suspicion and seen as ‘stealth’ job cuts (by taking another step towards centralisation), and unnecessary red tape. Such central policies may not be implemented locally or, if implemented, ignored in practice. The acquiring company may be perceived as predatory, arrogant and unwilling to take on board any good practices from acquired companies.

Safety culture is quite a nebulous thing – it is difficult to pin down in absolute terms what it is exactly, but it is the kind of thing you would know if you saw and experienced it! It is, essentially, the shared attitudes, values and behaviour of an organisation as regards safety. It has been described as “the way things are done around here”. Developing a positive safety culture involves changing people’s entrenched attitudes and behaviour. You may have to try a variety of methods because people and organisations are all different. Quite a lot of this is fairly obvious – think about the things that influence your own attitudes and behaviour.

Co-operation and Communication

Flatter, or more horizontal, management structures better facilitate the development of a positive safety culture. Companies with a high performance in H&S typically have a less hierarchical structure. H&S cultures thrive in environments which make two-way communication easier, and which promote involvement and ownership with the sharing of views and ideas.

Methods to promote involvement, co-operation and communication may be various, but could include: setting up committees and sub-committees to promote involvement in H&S matters, safety days, workshops, toolbox talks, incentive programmes (to encourage participation), safety task groups, and involving people in the actual writing of procedures themselves. In the old days, the manager would write the procedure, but it makes more sense, on many levels, for those actually doing the job to be deeply involved in devising solutions such as safe working procedures. They have first-hand knowledge of the problems and pitfalls and, if they are involved in writing the solution, there is a much greater chance of them adhering to them – because they are relevant, workable and the employees have a vested interest in making them work.

It is important to further recognise that many people work in teams and are influenced by group norms. Winning over key, influential individuals (including line managers) can be very effective. Key people can be brought together for meetings, either global or regional, to convince them of the approach and the way forward - information that will they need to pass on down the line. If you can convince key leaders, they will convince their team members through example and resetting group norms. Like any team, people either change to conform to group norms or become marginalised if their behaviour is unacceptable.

Competence

Training is clearly a key issue. This includes not only programmes that increase awareness of health and safety issues, but also courses that improve job competency. The entire workforce needs to move from complete dependency on rules to interdependency, where workers are actively thinking for themselves (with a safety mindset) and looking out for each other.

Control

It is crucial to lead by example. If managers make rules, they should also obey them, otherwise the whole credibility of the safety effort is undermined and rules become unenforceable. It is no use having a rule for show, which is just paid lip service, and then routinely flouted. Leaders should also not condone or encourage corner-cutting. Rules must be enforced by an appropriate level of supervision, with commitment and respect from the top.

Everyone should be clear about what is expected of them, be adequately resourced and be held accountable for poor performance. Large companies need to monitor performance and adherence to standards with audits carried out on a regular, perhaps two-year, cycle.

Be Patient

None of this is a quick fix. It takes time and effort to change a safety culture in an organisation. In extreme cases, very resistant individuals may need to be weeded out and fresh attitudes need time to take root. The key is not to spread your resources too thinly. Many attempts fail because companies try to tackle everything at once, and make little progress on any one thing. Set achievable objectives and priorities for the year and concentrate on those before moving on. Too fast a change of pace may also cause uncertainty – resulting in the very people you are counting on losing confidence in the programme.

External Influences on Global Health and Safety

Some drivers for global harmonisation within a company come from outside. These are sometimes customer driven – insistence that the vendor has an auditable safety system installed. On other occasions, it is as a result of the globalisation of health and safety regulations and standards.

The International Labour Organisation’s many conventions and recommendations on health and safety have no legal force, but set objectives and minimum standards that are then adopted by many countries throughout the world. The ILO also produce guidance on implementing safety management systems – again available for global adoption. There is also a raft of global legislation, such as those affecting transportation of dangerous goods. These standards become global out of necessity as goods are sent all over the world.

There are also the ISO standards, (the International Organisation for Standardisation) which produce standards, for example, for machinery and equipment and also within areas such as environmental standards (ISO 14001). The OSHAS 18001 series is an auditable globally applicable safety management system being adopted by an increasing number of organisations.

Regional government, also has a discernable impact. The EU has done much to remove trade barriers, harmonise standards and bring in legislation for minimum standards of worker protection and equipment safety. Again, these regulations have an effect, and not just on regional standards. We live in a small world, and it is easy to trace the influences of EU and UK legislation as its concepts become adopted by Hong Kong, Canada, Australia, etc. This also works the other way around. The EU may be heavily influenced by legislation on similar subject matter already in place in other regions.

Such legislation, standards and auditable safety management systems encourage companies to start putting programmes in place, and streamlining processes. It also encourages common terminology, common language and common systems, all of which assist global organisations to successfully embed a good health and safety culture. And the trend for natural harmonisation is set to continue as globalisation increases.

Umbrella Approach

In conclusion, a reiteration of the issue at hand: can a global organisation achieve a unified health and safety culture?

Health and safety culture is a human factor issue, very complicated and nebulous. People are different, from one office to another, let alone from one country to another - what motivates one person may not motivate another.

Trying to impose generic standards and procedures globally, without recognising different cultures and different laws will simply not work. The way to achieve a cohesive policy is to have the same basic approach and overall aim. Exactly how you achieve it can be tailored to local rules, cultures and be site-specific. For example, a site rule that handguns must be left in the trunk of your car and not brought into the office may well be fine for the United Sates, but is largely irrelevant and unnecessary for a UK site. What needs to be fostered is a collective idea of wrong and right, what works and what doesn’t.

The best a global company can achieve is to have globally auditable and recognisable standards, with a common terminology and approach. Even if the details are different, there are common aims and objectives. Diversity is good. If everyone was forced to do things the same way, innovation might be stifled. However, the same aim, that of a healthier and safer workplace can be achieved via many different pathways.

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