In the EU, work-related incidents and injuries cost 476 billion euros a year, while in the United States, work-related injuries cost employers more than $170 billion each year. Regulatory compliance is no longer good enough—companies need to go beyond the minimum standards, such as reports based on lagging indicators.
Cost of Work-related Incidents and Injuries (in Billions)
476
Europe
170
United States
The health and safety landscape has become more complex and will continue to change in response to events such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the heat waves, fires and flooding caused by climate change. Events like these significantly influence the risk mitigation aspects of ESG reporting, and companies must continually manage their business risks by addressing the health, safety and well-being of their workforce. Health and safety leaders are now under increased pressure to provide proof in numbers for internal and external ESG reporting.
As if reporting pressure was not enough, EHS leaders are faced with the daily challenge of creating an effective and active safety culture as part of their EHS management. During the EHS Congress held in Berlin in May 2023, EHS and health and safety leaders of global organizations ranked safety culture and adoption a number one priority.
Safety Culture – Establish, Engage and Embrace
75
75% said that safety is part of the corporate culture, supported by the highest levels of management.
40
But only 40% said they have a well-defined roadmap to improve safety performance.
This gap between safety intent and reality was concerning in 2021, and it is still a challenge among companies of all sizes, as the EHS Congress and various industry reports have made clear. However, there are well-established ways to tackle this challenge.
Establish a safety culture in your organization:
Every member of your workforce and your contractors must be able to report behavior-based safety observations as well as incidents and near-misses that they spot.
Engage all levels of the organization:
For your data collection to fully capture the direct and indirect impacts of incidents across the organization, you need everyone to spot potential or real risks and handle them respectfully without issuing blame. You also want your workforce to celebrate success.
Embrace safety culture and its adoption:
Encourage the widespread adoption of an effective safety culture by using mobile devices, incident reporting tools without logins, automatic classification of incidents and automated reports and notifications.
Read more about Sphera’s focus on health and safety in our latest E-Book “Three Keys Areas to Optimize Your Health & Safety Performance”.
Boost Your Health and Safety Performance with Smart Technology
The health and safety landscape has become more complex, adding new challenges to our daily work and life. And in the same way that we use digital tools to facilitate daily routines (navigation apps and apps for cooking, the weather and bill payments, for example), we can use health and safety management software to boost performance.
Measures of Success: How Co-op Used Historical Data to Proactively Improve Workplace Safety
“If you really want to know what’s going on in your organization and you truly want to drive a positive safety culture, you need to give everybody the opportunity to raise concerns and to tell you what’s happening in your organization.”
Read Co-op Story
To recap:
- To understand your health and safety performance, the right data is key. Build a foundation with leading indicator data (near misses, observations, etc.) and incident data. Collect data that can provide valuable lessons to make a real difference within your organization.
- To get the right data, it is essential to allow your entire workforce to report. You will benefit from more leading indicator data, which will help to increase knowledge and prevent incidents. It will also support a proactive safety culture.
- To drive your health and safety management program, select a technology partner who can provide you with purpose-built, modern EHS software with simple access for all your employees and contractors via mobile technology or a web-based portal.
