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Attitudes to health and safety changing around the world

The approach businesses take to preventing and mitigating incidents is changing around the world, according to an international survey conducted by DNV GL Business Assurance.

The research, which was carried out in October 2013, centred on 3,860 professionals who work at leading organisations in the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors of different industries across Europe, Asia, North America, Central and South America.

Overall, the qualitative survey concludes that:

• North Americans place emphasis on managing workplace safety to preserve their business
• Norwegians and Swedes put people centre stage
• Asians believe they still have to work to do on structural aspects of their safety systems

Luca Crisciotti, CEO of DNV GL Business Assurance, said the survey highlighted how different regions around the world held different attitudes to safety management.

“The situation varies in different areas of the world, according to legislation, different cultural attitudes and different levels of development of infrastructures, but in general, there is still a lot of work to be done,” he said.

Mr Crisciotti highlighted a lack of financial resources and pressure on businesses to focus on short term goals as key drivers making “these objectives even more challenging”.

Even though, he said it was “important for companies to lead the change and keep working on these items”.

Key findings: compliance with laws and regulations

87% of those surveyed pinpointed a need to comply with laws and regulations as the top reason driving them to develop actions to safeguard health and safety at work. After that, 73% of professionals said internal policies came next.

Other findings include:

• Occupational safety remains a top concern for global corporations. In comparison to safety concerns, other factors that could affect market performance – brand protection (24%), public opinion (19%), competitiveness (19%) – proved to be minor drivers.
• In addition to regulatory compliance, one in two North Americans see safety actions as a critical means by which to safeguard corporate assets. One in three North Americans also highlighted the need to satisfy requests from insurance companies along with the protection of property and key persons.
• Lack of financial resources (31%) and focus on short term results (26%) came in as the leading factors hindering businesses from making more progress in managing safety all over the world.
• In Asia, the burden of factors such as a decrease in efficiency (23%) or lack of return on investment (19%) weighs heavier than average, highlighting that the way operations are structured stands as an obstacle in this region.

Going forward

The survey found that going forward professionals around the world anticipate a decrease in workplace hazards. A culture change is said to be at the heart of this with 63% expecting training for employees and risk assessments to top the list.

Mr Crisciotti said things were perceivably changing in the way companies deal with safety at work around the world. A shift from simply reacting to incidents to operational efforts designed to prevent them was afoot, he added.

The survey found that 90% of people expected to maintain or increase investment levels for occupational health and safety over the next three years.

Mr Crisciotti said businesses around the world were taking an “important step towards the advancement of a real corporate culture of occupational health and safety”.

“This would enable them to focus not only on operations but also organisational aspects and the wellbeing of their workers.”

DNV GL is a world-leading certification body which is committed to helping businesses assure the performance of their organizations, products, people, facilities and supply chains through certification, verification, assessment, and training services.

• View the full official press release

More about the survey methodology

DNV GL says:

• The sample is qualitative and not statistically representative
• 23% of the firms involved employ less than 50 people, 32% from 50 to 249 and 45% have more than 250 employees
• Most of the companies involved are in the secondary sector, particularly food (5%), chemicals (6%), metals (11%), machinery (9%) and electrical (4%)
• 67% of survey respondents are directly involved in technical management
• The questionnaire was administered using the CAWI (Computer Assisted Web Interviewing) methodology

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