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COMPANY FOCUS
RAILSTAFF OCTOBER 2018
HAS
HEALTH & SAFETY HAD ITS DAY?
W
REPORT BY PETE SCHOFIELD, FORD & STANLEY CHAIRMAN
hen we’re running our leadership development workshops, we like to generate passionate discussion within the group so pose questions that energise people and divide opinion. There’s one question almost guaranteed to work: “Does health and safety take a back seat when it comes to maximising the performance of your company?” Usually some individuals argue that ‘safety first’ is paramount in all situations. On the other hand other people, especially those responsible for hitting targets, often state a different, more cynical view. Other people argue that individuals who carry performance targets have a tendency to cut corners and do whatever needs to be done, regardless sometimes of the inherent risks this represents. The fact that we hear this argument play out so often it shouldn’t come as a surprise.
Whether we like it or not, health and safety (H&S) appears to be more interesting to people who have it in their job title than people who have responsibility for ensuring that it is a way of life. Unfortunately for too many people H&S still has connotations of either red tape or extra work and hassle. Even to people who should innately understand its importance. Is it time to give H&S a makeover? How do we actually get people excited about H&S?
BOTTOM LINE As with any attempt to communicate, we need to talk in a way that appeals to those we are trying to influence - and there are some very compelling arguments for those charged with the performance of your organisation, to take as much notice of the opportunities as those involved in health and safety. Take the recent example of the train driver who went through a red light and derailed due to being distracted by using their mobile phone – despite attending a H&S briefing on that very subject not 30 minutes prior to the crash! © iStockphoto.com
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With the minimum cost of a derailment to the business being reported to us as £1 million, how many paying passengers would have to be carried to generate the profit to put that £1 million back on the bottom line? If we could offer the person in charge of organisational performance at that company an initiative guaranteed to create a safer environment and generate an additional £1 million in profit, do you believe there’s a fair chance they might sit up and take a keen interest? Part of what we do at Genius Performance is deal with the personal challenges that are getting in the way of our employees performing at their best and/or distracting them from carrying out their work in a safe manner. We call this part of our business ‘Performance Transformation’ and it’s all about maximising the wellbeing of employees, helping individuals feel better about what they do by feeling better about themselves, so they can be ‘in the moment’ whilst at work and not distracted by other things. We developed Performance Transformation because we recognised that, given the pressure of life today, anyone at some point in their career could encounter overwhelming or challenging circumstances. Many actually do and this is estimated to be costing UK industry 90 million workdays per year. (See if the performance analysts in your business can quantify the upside of a remedy to this kind of KPI!)