Aug 11 2010
A top specialist in occupational health has hit out at those who pour scorn on her industry and like to refer to it as 'Elf and Safety', despite the fact that 180 people a year die in workplace accidents and more than 246,000 are injured.
“No-one who has been involved in causing harm to someone at work ever wants to go through it again.”
In an article published this month, Karen Baxter, MD of the workplace and eco risk specialists, Sypol, says people who make jokes about safety at work wouldn't take the same attitude towards an air accident.
"If a plane crashed and killed 180 people, we wouldn't be having a good laugh and call it 'Sky Pixie Syndrome'," she says.
"Health and Safety has become the acceptable butt of everyone's humour, partly because the media loves silly stories and partly because we've allowed ourselves to drown in acronyms and paperwork instead of addressing the real issues. As a result, small businesses in particular have been discouraged from adopting sensible practices."
Recent media stories have included: children being prohibited from playing conkers; old people being refused doormats in case they trip over them; and shopkeepers told not to put down grit in icy conditions.
"Most of these stories are apocryphal or driven by insurance requirements, not health and safety. Good health and safety is a combination of regulation, business benefits and moral cost," says Karen Baxter. "No-one who has been involved in causing harm to someone at work ever wants to go through it again."
In her article, she details the business benefits of making health and safety an enterprise-wide culture. These include: accidents avoided, fewer working days lost, improved recruitment and staff retention, improved customer confidence, reduced insurance premiums, and the ability to tender for large corporate and government contracts.
Small companies bear a disproportionate burden because the same rules apply to all businesses, large and small, the article says. However, small business owners can put health and safety at the centre of their operations without it being time-consuming, bureaucratic or a waste of money. To help them achieve this, Sypol has launched SMEHelpingHandS, a package focused specifically at small- and medium-sized enterprises.
"It's time to shoot the 'Elf' and get serious about workplace Health," says Karen Baxter.