Research and Development
At the cutting edge of global developments in health and safety management.
Hastam aims to be at the forefront of developments in safety and health. It has developed cutting edge software to support decision-making and monitoring in safety management. Its products and advice are based on long experience backed up by research and scientific evaluation and it constantly strives to apply the insights coming from the burgeoning international literature on the subject. Two of its directors, Professor Richard Booth and Professor Andrew Hale have headed research and teaching groups, at Aston University in Birmingham in the UK and at TU Delft in the Netherlands, which have impressive track records in research and development, through PhD research, fundamental research funding and industry, government and EU funded contracts.
As part of our research programme we have initiated a series of conferences on current issues in health and safety (see side bar). The next one is scheduled for 28th March 2012 on Behavioural Safety.
Recent and on-going work includes the following:
Management of Safety Rules and Procedures
Rules and procedures are a corner stone of safety management and Hastam conducted a literature study funded in 2010-11 under the IOSH R&D programme. This has produced a comprehensive review of experience in the use of safety rules, their design, introduction and monitoring to avoid and manage violations. Based on this and workshops to tap into the experience of practitioners, we have prepared Notes of Guidance and submitted them, together with the review to IOSH, who will consider the best form of publication, both in the scientific literature and in a form suitable for professional use. Our review emphasises the need to involve the rule users in monitoring, modifying and codifying rules and sets out a 9 step process of rule management with good practice tips at each step. See alse the Rules Conference.
Competence and Qualification of Safety Professionals
Internationally there are significant moves afoot to develop and harmonise the qualifications of safety professionals. Professor Andrew Hale is chairman of the certification committee of the European Network of Safety and Health Professional Organisations (ENSHPO), which has developed a voluntary, two-level qualification at safety manager and safety technician levels. This has influenced national qualifications in a number of European countries, including Italy, Switzerland and Malta. Andrew is also involved in two European projects, one to introduce certification in Malta, and the other to develop training recommendations and materials for the two qualification levels.
This work also builds on the long involvement of Tony Boyle and Richard Booth with IOSH and NEBOSH training. The development of certification of safety consultants has been the spur for Hastam to look critically at the competence of UK safety professionals, particularly in the area of investigation, monitoring and organisational change and to make proposals for assessing the current state of the art and proposing better training. See also the Competence Conference.
Evaluation of Safety Interventions
There is increasing emphasis on evidence-based practice in safety and health, taking a leaf out of the book of health professionals. Sadly there is very little good evaluation of the effectiveness of safety interventions in organisations. We rely too much on expert judgement, professional colleagues and anecdotal evidence to decide what methods to try. Professor Andrew Hale has been conducting research for the last 4 years, sponsored by the Dutch government, to evaluate the effect of a range of different interventions in 16 Dutch companies. Publications on this include the following:
- Guldenmund FW, Hale AR, van Loenhout P & Oh JIH 2008. The secret of successful safety interventions. Crete, 4th International Conference Working on Safety.
- van Ginneken J, Hale AR 2009. From hanger-on to trendsetter: Decision making on a major safety initiative in a steel company maintenance department. Safety Science, 47, p. 884 - 889.
- Hale AR, Guldenmund FW, van Loenhout P & Oh JIH. 2010. Evaluating safety management and culture interventions to improve safety: overall results of measuring success. Safety Science 48(8) 1026-1035
- Hale AR, Jacobs J & Oor M 2010, Safety culture change in two companies. Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Management Conference. Seattle, June 2010.
The results show the effectiveness of setting up a continuing dialogue between shop floor and supervision to monitor and improve safety behaviour and risk control measures. It emphasises the value of reporting dangerous situations to drive this dialogue. It shows not only the importance of active senior management involvement, but also the need for creative and persistent safety professionals providing the motor for improvement.
