Tips for Encouraging Staff Compliance with Health and Safety

The latest health and safety statistics for Great Britain indicate that 1.6 million working people suffer from a work-related illness, with 38.8 million working days lost due to work-related illness and injury. Research shows that almost all accidents at work can be linked to some degree of human error, most notably in incidents of exposure to hazardous substances. And while human error is inevitable, this does not excuse health and safety breaches. Here we examine the various safety breaches, and how to encourage compliance of employee’s health and safety responsibilities.

Types of Health and Safety Breaches

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) report Improving Compliance with Safety Procedures emphasises the need to classify violations. Violations refer to knowing or intentional health and safety breaches rather than unintentional human error. Health and safety breaches of this nature are categorised into three main groups.

Routine violations

Routine violations refer to the frequent health and safety breaches that become commonplace in a work environment. Though this kind of violation may have been a conscious decision at some point, it becomes routine over time and workers automatically opt for the behaviour that doesn’t comply with employee’s health and safety responsibilities.

Situational violations

These health and safety breaches often occur in situations that make it difficult or impossible to comply. This can be caused by conflicting requirements or a barrier that prevents workers from performing the activities in a specified manner. Where conflicting procedures are an issue, workers have to violate some aspects of the employee’s health and safety responsibilities to achieve the end result.

Exceptional violations

Exceptional violations are the health and safety breaches most commonly associated with high risk. They are rare in comparison to routine and situational violations and are normally the result of extenuating circumstances, often when something is already going wrong. In an attempt to resolve the problem, breaches in health and safety are made out of perceived necessity.

Examples of Health and Safety Breaches

Health and safety breaches look different in every industry, but the Leadership Worker and Involvement Toolkit describes typical violations specifically in the construction sector. These include overlooking basic safety measures like scaffolders not clipping their harnesses on at above four metres, and dumper drivers not wearing seatbelts. Other violations of employee health and safety responsibilities listed include tradesmen starting work on a site without reporting to management or being inducted, or site managers allowing work to commence without the proper training.

Reasons Workers May Violate Employee’s Health and Safety Responsibilities

Health and safety breaches are generally well-meaning, but that doesn’t mean they’re not dangerous. Often, violations of employees’ health and safety come from a poor perception of risk. This is when workers believe the risk to be so low that there won’t be consequences to themselves or others from noncompliance. This can also come from a lack of understanding of why a health and safety rule is in place, and workers believing it is not relevant.

While some breaches of health and safety are intentional, they’re rarely malicious. Violations generally come from wanting to get the job done and on time, rather than a desire to sabotage. Working under time pressure or not having enough workers to do the job can increase the likelihood of violations. Workers may believe that cutting corners will help get the job done on time.

There are occasions where workers will breach health and safety violations purely because they think they can get away with it. It may be to save time or effort or because of a belief that the rules are too strict among the workers.

A common reason for routine breaches of employee’s health and safety responsibilities is lacking the facilities to do the job without some kind of workaround. It may be that workers don’t have access to materials or tools required, they may not have the correct PPE as provided by the management, or there may be a lack of training resources available to them. This is a barrier to workers fulfilling the job while complying with health and safety regulations, so in order to complete the job, they go ahead without these necessities.

How to Encourage Compliance with Employee’s Health and Safety Responsibilities

As the reason for many health and safety breaches is a lack of understanding, investing in educating workers about the need for these regulations and the consequences of noncompliance can help share their perspective. It’s crucial to emphasise the importance of minimising risk to reduce the number of workplace incidents, injuries and fatalities. Statistics show that 111 workers were killed at work in Great Britain this year, and including information like this in your risk assessments will help communicate the importance of safety standards.

Talking and engaging with workers about your current health and safety procedures can provide a useful insight into what is effective and what needs reassessing. There may be valid reasons why workers feel regulations are outdated, unworkable or unnecessary, and hearing from them can improve your current measures and in some instances make them more efficient. Working with them on your induction and training processes will also help to emphasise the importance of these health and safety regulations.

In instances where employee’s health and safety responsibilities are being overlooked, increased monitoring can help combat violations. Where workers have previously been getting away with breaching health and safety regulations, more routine checks from management can help combat non-compliance and enforce higher standards.

Reduce Health and Safety Breaches by Leading by Example

Often in decision making the onus is on the individual worker to make the right call in a situation. This is especially true in cases of exceptional violations whereby the emergency or situation is so unusual that there is no common practice response. However, in implementing employee’s health and safety responsibilities, both management and workers are accountable. Management should be giving workers the tools, environment and information to effectively manage their health and safety. By demonstrating good health and safety, management can lead by example and set a high standard in the workplace.

CHAS can help you reduce health and safety breaches to achieve compliance not just with health and safety regulations, but across many different areas of risk management.

By becoming a CHAS Contractor, you’ll gain access to resources for risk management, including health and safety compliance checklists and risk assessment templates, as well as industry-leading accreditation schemes that can help you demonstrate your compliance to clients. Find the right CHAS package for your business now.