It is in the interest of all employees that proper health & safety procedures are followed in their places of work. But only a third of employees are prepared to defend their right to a safe and healthy working environment by blowing the whistle on employers who flaunt the rules. A recent YouGov poll commissioned by the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) found that only 28% of people would report their company or organisation to the Health & Safety Executive if it was in breach of health and safety legislation.
Of the 1,332 people responding to the IOSH survey, 35% said they would report a line manager or supervisor to their boss if they felt there was a risk that they, or a colleague, could get hurt at work. Meanwhile, 74% would actually tell a line manager or supervisor about such risks and 50% would tell their colleagues. One in twenty, it seems, would do none of these things.
Trying to make sense of these findings, IOSH president, Ray Hurst suggests that people are either being very loyal to their employers by not reporting them or, more likely, they are scared of the consequences of being uncovered as a whistle blower. He believes it is also possible that people simply don’t have a clue about the HSE reporting procedure, which is evident from the poll. This also showed that almost a third of 18-24 year olds didn’t know who to go to for health and safety advice at work.
The most recent annual statistics available to the IOSH reveal that 247 people were killed at work and 274,000 were injured, yet employees vastly underestimate these figures, according to a parallel IOSH survey of 1,291 people, the majority of whom believed the injury figure is between 1,000 and 50,000.
Banning games of conkers from playgrounds or removing hanging baskets from high streets might occasionally make health and safety legislation the butt of jokes but, as the IOSH survey reveals, it’s something we all need to take rather more seriously.
While on the subject of the workplace, I couldn’t help noticing another report that crossed my desk last week, with the rather eye-catching title ‘Sex and Power’. Recent research by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) into the careers of women in positions of power and influence across the public and private sectors suggests a “worrying trend” of stalled progress and even reversal.
Now in its fifth year, the EHRC’s latest report indicates fewer women holding top posts in 12 of the 25 categories studied. In another five categories the number of women remains unchanged since the 2007 report, and women’s representation has increased in just eight areas. In Westminster, for example, women make up just 19.3% of all MPs, lagging substantially the proportion in the Rwanda and Afghanistan parliaments. The Commission likens women’s progress in the UK to a snail’s pace; a snail would be able to crawl nine times around the M25 in the 55 years it will take for women to achieve equality in the senior judiciary!
EHRC chief executive, Nicola Brewer said that young women’s aspiration is in danger of giving way to frustration. “We always speak of a glass ceiling,” she says. “These figures reveal that in some cases it appears to be made of reinforced concrete.”
Not surprisingly theses finding resonate with those of the UK Resource Centre (UKRC) for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology (SET), which says the issues are particularly noticeable in SET where under-representation is particularly acute (a subject that has been aired from time to time in this column).
UKRC director, Annette Williams points to studies that show a positive relationship between the diversity of a board of directors and financial performance. In particular, McKinsey’s research into large organisations in Europe, America and Asia finds that organisational performance increases sharply once a threshold of at least three women on management committees (with an average membership of ten) is reached. When added to research on flexible working, says Ms Williams, the figures make a powerful business case for diversity in the workplace.
Nicola Brewer believes that the EHRC’s findings are not just a “women’s issue”, but are indeed a powerful symptom of wider failure. In what other ways are old-fashioned, inflexible ways of working preventing Britain from tapping into talent – whether that of women or other under-represented group? As Ms Brewer suggests, Britain cannot afford to go on marginalising or rejecting talented people who fail to fit into traditional work patterns.
Les Hunt
Editor
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