Corporate Manslaughter - Finally a reason for management to listen?

When I talk to companies or organisations about their lone workers I'll typically be talking to a Health & Safety or Risk Manager. In the vast majority of cases, they fully appreciate the challenges and risks facing their lone workers, often because they themselves may have been a lone worker before moving into their current role. Equally, the majority of lone workers themselves fully appreciate their risks and often feel they are not supported as well as they need to be by their managers.

So why aren't they better supported?

The bottleneck is nearly always getting 'buy in' from senior managers and board members, with them needing to budget for costs associated with change management and implementation of technology to remove or reduce risks facing workers at the coal face.

Putting legal and moral oblibgations that an employer holds to one side, investing in a safer workforce can deliver numerous benefits to a business. However, to budget or to spend money requires a clear justification for doing so and quite rightly so. And here in lies the problem. Many H&S or Risk Managers may struggle to pull together a business justification. Either because they lack experience in doing this or because the benefits that can be delivered may be intangible and difficult to put a value on. For example, a lone worker who feels safer will prove to be more productive. As a statement, that isn't hard to believe. How do you place a financial value on this though?

Over recent months Connexion2 has seen the subject of corporate manslaughter raised a number of times. Seemingly, the risk of directors or senior managers facing criminal prosecution and their businesses facing serious fines has caused them to look at removing worker based risks throughout their organisation.

I for one welcome the corporate manslaughter bill and look forward to more and more business leaders appreciating what it means to them. For too long now it has been possible for managers to duck responsibility of looking after workers better..this bill will go a long way to addressing this.