Ljubljana, November 7th 2008
Ir. Kris De Meester
Director health and safety affairs
Chairmen BussinessEurope OSH Committee
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Restructuring of economy and politics: "Competitive
Europe"
 Competitive world economy and increased productivity with restructuring of organizations and management
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Outsourcing, focus on core-business, downsizing, delocalisation
– 60% of world trade within supply chain!
– Work intensity, stress,…
– The world becomes "smaller" (a global village in a "global" world)
 Instability in financial markets
New technology and new production: "Innovative Europe"
 Increasing global automation and change of manufacturing industries towards a service production
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New production models and job contents
– Shift from traditional workplace to homework, mobile office,…
– Temporary work, just in time,...
Demographic shift: "Graying Europe"
 Rapid ageing of work force, changing age attitudes and demands on work ability and competence
–  Challenges facing young workers and immigrants
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Geographic shift: “Migrating Europe”
 Workers from new EU member states and beyond
 Language barriers; training, instruction and communication challenges
Social change: “Conscient European Generation"
 From a work life-centred society toward a "multisociety"
– Periods of employment, unemployment, training, leisure, family life and individual development vary throughout the whole life course.
 Employee participation and a new citizenship is growing
 Balancing work and family life
Growing role of media "Attention Economy and
Citizens Europe“
 Social media, social networking
Increasing speed of changes ”Speeding Europe”
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 Lisbon Strategy
 Guaranteeing quality and productivity at work can play in promoting economic growth and employment.
 The enormous economic costs of problems associated with health and safety at work inhibits economic growth and affects the competitiveness of businesses in the
EU
 Raise the employment rate

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Poor OSH conditions (Occupational Safety,
Health, Welbeïng,…)
 Human burden
 Enterprise burden
– Millions of working days lost
– Enormous cost
– Affects all sectors of the economy
 Societal burden
Prevention has more benefits than just reducing damages: contributory factor in improving company performance

(AND GO HOME)
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GOOD ORGANIZATION
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Time is money
 No prevention = incidents, disturbances, accidents = no just in time, missed deadlines, longer production time = time loss
Weak chains don’t survive
 Companies are linked in the economy (supply chain, contractor chain)
 No prevention = incidents, disturbances, accidents = missed deadlines, contract fines, contract break-up = weakest chain cut out
Transport has to be on the move
 No prevention (choice of transport, maintenance, driving style,…) = damage, extra maintenance, extra fuel, loss of time and money
Stress is harmful
 A lot of workers experience negative stress due to high work pace, work pressure, emotional workload, lack of support, problematic work-life balance,...
 No prevention = reduced productivity, higher absenteism, more mistakes, accidents, reduced quality

HEALTHY MANAGEMENT
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Client satisfaction
 Prevention = positive influence on company management, good housekeeping, work atmosphere, higher client satisfaction
Market orientation
 More en more clients or plant owners put health and safety demands on their suppliers/contractors
 No prevention = loss of clients, loss of market share
Attracting new people - job retention
 As (skilled) labour force is becoming scarce
 Workers become more sensitive for quality of their working environment
 Company image as safe and healthy workplace can make the difference

COST REDUCTION
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Human Capital
 Safe and healthy workplace = precondition for job satisfaction
Prevention leads to higher job satisfaction
Motivated workers are productive workers
Accidents at work = high cost
 Direct cost: accident insurance (up to 10% !!! Of salary mass)
 Indirect costs: X times direct cost !

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Intervention: first aid, ambulance
Colleagues interrupt work
Colleague accompanies victim
Victim absent from work
Accident spot (temporarily) blocked/unavailable
Accident investigation involving manager, witnesses, expert(s), committee
Accident report
Administrative contacts and burden
Work equipment/materials/goods damaged
Cleanup of accident spot
Temporary stop of production/service
New equipment
Replacement of victim
Reorganisation of work
Training of new worker
Impact on work atmosphere
Job satisfaction decreases
Influence on company image
Reduced turnover
Etc.
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COST REDUCTION
 Company failure / bankruptcy
 Small cause, great consequences
 Sinking of Herald of Free Enterprise, gas explosion
Ghillengien
 60% of company fires lead to company failure
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Prevention pays
 Investment analysis
 Cost-benefit analysis
Prevention is base for success
 Combined effects of reduced accidents, reduced absenteeism and personnel turnover, higher job satisfaction, improved image that lead to better productivity
 Beneficial for company and worker (improved live quality)
 Correlation between productivity and prevention (graph)

Figure: Competitivenss and safety (World Economic Forum, ILO/SafeWork)
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LAW AND ORDER
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Legal obligation
 Framework directive and daughter directives
 Other legal health and safety legislation or rules
Enforcement, inspection
 Inspection measures (eg lockout of unsafe work equipment)
 Fines, court sanctions (company, administrators, management)
 Negative media attention, impact on company image

HUMAN BURDEN
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Accidents
 Accident figures (cf. Eurostat)
 Affects victims, their families, colleagues
 ‘It's not only business, it's also personal’
Societal responsibilty
 Not only direct and indirect cost but also societal burden (loss of employability)
 Prevention, safe and healthy workplaces = also corporate social responsibility = contribution to better employment, welfare and productivity of society as a whole

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Ostrich-strategy: short-term vision, neglect problems, accident = bad luck, only action if inspected/enforced
Defensive strategy: minimum attention to health and safety of workers, efforts limited to most important legal requirements
Constructive strategy: assume responsibility for health and safety of workers. Management involvement. Legal requirements are a minimum. Prevention policy integrated in all aspects of company management and processes in consultation with all actors involved.
Health and safety management (system).
Opportunistic strategy: seek commercial benefits and image building through prevention and OSH-management. Internal and external auditing (certification). Strong worker involvement and empowerment.
Management accountability for OSH.
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 Constructive or opportunistic
 Integrated strategy
 (top)management commitment
 Assume leadership
 Structured approach (plan-do-check-act)
 Dynamic (daily and ongoing efforts)
 Participation off all actors
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Development and strengthening of a preventive culture must be a central element of any strategy aiming at improving occupational safety and health
Development and strengthening of a preventive culture = achieving better OSH performance by fostering changes in behavioural patterns
 Governments
 Employers
 Workers
 OSH-Experts
 Financial world
 Students, young people
 ALL PEOPLE
Cannot be achieved through legislation !
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Strategy to promote a preventive culture must
 address all parts of society
 go beyond the workplace and the working population
 should help create a general culture that values health and risk prevention
Regulation is just one element
 + implementation
 + control
 + awareness raising
 + education and training
 + enabling environment
 + guidance, assistance,
 + …
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REFOCUS AT INTERNATIONAL AND NATIONAL LEVEL TO
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Develop national strategy (ILO convention 187)
 Profile
 Vision
 Action Plan
Promote appropriate health and safety management as an integral part of effective business management
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Achieve higher levels of recognition and respect for health and safety as:
 an integral part of a modern, competitive business and public sector;
 a contribution to social justice and inclusion
Encourage awareness of the importance of greater corporate responsibility for health and safety
Promote good health and safety practice for all sizes of organisation in all sectors
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‘Challenge’ all organisations, private, (public and voluntary), to provide direction on health and safety
Develop tools for use by stakeholders (including business, institutional investors, insurers, employers and trade unions) to further goal of achieving greater corporate responsibility
 Search levers for change
Promote public reporting of health and safety targets and performance so that information is made readily accessible to all stakeholders
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Management systems/tools
Activities to usefully support focus on prevention
 Awareness-raising actions targeting a large public
 Dissemination of good practices
Positive action: “appreciative inquiry”
Use/search “market driven” instruments
 Contractor safety management systems and training
 Safety logbook
 Supply chain incentives
 (Public) procurement
 (Accident and diseases insurance systems)
 Customer and consumer demands
 Temporary workers management systems (risk activities)
 Benchmarking
 New indicators (solution reponse-time, training level)
Be creative !
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 What has been build up over months and years can be destroyed in minutes!
 Practice what you preach
– Authorities
– Social partners
– Top management
– Operational supervisors
– Experts
Stimulate safe behavior
Discourage unsafe behavior
Stress the success of safe behavior
Reduce disadvantages of safe behavior
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Federations
 Take control over the agenda
 Assume leadership (captains of industry)
 Offensive or opportunistic strategy
 (voluntary) Agreements at national, regional and branche level
 Exchange of good practice
 Collaboration: with education, health,…
Companies
 Systems approach
 Do not lean on experts and advisers but assume leadership
 Management involvement
 Role and responsibility of supervisors
 Internal auditing by management
 Workers involvement (partnership – set expectations)
 Behaviour based approach
– Last Minute Risk Analysis
 Further explore “the healthy workplace”, “workplace health promotion”
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To gain recognition of health and safety as a cornerstone of civilized and responsible companies and, with that, to achieve a record of workplace health and safety that leads the world!
It’s time to set the traditional regulatory approach upside down and to start with an overall integrated efficient and effective new approach
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