Who’s responsible for health and safety in the workplace, and why is organisational health important?

It is the responsibility of business leaders to ensure employees are healthy and safe, whether that’s in an office or at home. It has also become a fundamental human right to work in a safe and healthy environment, says the International Labour Organization. Health and safety in the workplace is an obligation backed by legislation, and rightly so.

Yet, while there are defined rules and regulations for adhering to workers’ rights and responsibilities, organisations could do more to create a healthy workplace. A McKinsey study found a strong link between organisational health and safety: companies with better organisational health had six times fewer safety incidents than those with worse organisational health.

So, what is organisational health, how does it help employees, and what can leaders do to improve it? Let’s also explore what constitutes a ‘safety incident’.

What is organisational health?

It’s difficult to neatly define organisational health, as it comprises a mix of influencing factors. One workplace may have a different view of it to another, with perhaps different ingredients that make for a healthy environment. Fundamental principles that cover most workplaces might include a balance of good work hours, stress management, workload, employee churn rates and financial outcomes.

We’ve discussed organisational health before in an article called Leadership vs management: why every manager should lead: ‘Organisational health rests on employee engagement, and employee engagement rests on great manager relationships.’

When it comes to workplace health and safety, business leaders may find a proactive approach works well. By actively engaging in health and safety practices, policies and procedures that benefit employees, a company may benefit from improved business efficiencies.

Another way to look at this would be to imagine a business leader who ticks all the right boxes to follow workplace health and safety guidelines. This keeps employees safe and well, but only so long as the guidelines are followed. A proactive business leader cultivates an environment of care and wellbeing, where employee experience is uppermost in their decisions. An awareness of employee experience, for example, may lead to action plans that help prevent burnout and high churn rates.

The route to better organisational health

This is a good moment to address the guidelines as set out by the UK’s Health and Safety Executive. They include a range of responsibilities to ensure health and safety in the workplace, backed by law, such as:

• What employers must do
• What employees must do
• Fire safety
• Employment rights

Business leaders are responsible for implementing policies and procedures around these official guidelines that safeguard employees’ physical and mental wellbeing. This means creating a work environment that is free from hazards, providing employees with safety training, and providing access to resources that promote positive mental health.

Organisations are also responsible for conducting regular safety inspections and audits to ensure that all safety measures are being followed. It’s crucial they know what potential hazards exist in the workplace and how to prevent them, and that they know how to respond in the event of an emergency.

Business leaders are also accountable for ensuring employees are aware of their rights and responsibilities when it comes to health and safety. Workers should know what is expected of them in terms of safety, and they should be furnished with appropriate resources and support. Being up to date on changes in health and safety laws and regulations is essential.

But what is a safety incident?

It's tempting to conclude that telling an employee where the fire escape is and where the First Aid kit is kept is all a business leader has to do to be compliant. To a degree, this is true. The leader who goes above and beyond is the architect of a culture of care, where health and safety in the workplace is more than bandages, fire drills and face masks.

The key to cultivating a culture of care is in building connections with employees. Our post-pandemic workplace has reshaped how we approach work, as recognised by Gartner in its ReimagineHR Employee Survey towards the end of 2020: ‘When employers develop deeper relationships with their employees, there is a 23% increase in the number of employees reporting better mental health and a 17% increase in the number of employees reporting better physical health. Employers who support their employees more holistically realise a 21% increase in high performers.’

In a post-pandemic world, health and safety in the workplace is increasingly recognised as emotional as well as physical. In fact, more people suffer from work-related stress, depression or anxiety than a work-related musculoskeletal disorder, according to Health and Safety Executive statistics. Employee mental wellbeing is clearly as important as ensuring people leave a building by the stairwell during a fire. The Gartner survey adds: ‘Work and life cannot be treated as two separate constructs.’

So, a ‘safety incident’ may manifest itself as anxiety – one of the antagonists identified by Dr Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, director of Oxford University’s Wellbeing Research Centre, and author of the U.N. World Happiness Report.

Therefore, a leader who recognises the signs of employee anxiety before they reach a critical stage should be regarded as essential in a modern, 21st century organisation. The future of work may depend on leadership that promotes health and safety as a value, and which places emphasis on elevating employee experience to build a culture of care. A focus on organisational health may be a core ingredient in keeping people safe and healthy wherever they work.