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Are you wondering how you can give your employees a safety voice?

If so, then why not find out more at our special ‘breakfast briefing’ session during next week’s annual Health & Safety Event at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre.

We’re off to Hilton Head Island in South Carolina this week and the annual HSE Insights Summit at the magnificent Sonesta Resort Hilton.

International fresh produce company, G’s, lifted the coveted ‘agriculture, food and beverages’ gong at last night’s Verdantix HSE Innovation awards in London following the successful implementation of our Assure health and safety management software.

We are delighted to share that one of our SHE Software community members, G’s, has been short-listed in the Agriculture, Food and Beverages sector for a prestigious Verdantix HSE Innovation Award.

Are you confident that the health and safety systems and software you’ve invested time - and funding - in directly improve your organisation’s safety performance?

SHE Software is pleased to announce Bryson Recycling as a new customer of its health and safety software, Assure. 

Health and safety risks faced by the construction industry remain very real - as do the consequences.

SHE Software is pleased to announce Vital Energi Utilities Ltd as a new customer of its health and safety software, Assure. 

Are you confident that your organisation is recording, monitoring and reducing the number of potential hazards that your workforce is exposed to daily?

SHE Software is pleased to announce Briggs Marine & Environmental Services as a new customer of its health and safety software, Assure. 

Due to continued business growth, SHE Software’s Simon Cooke has recently taken on a newly developed role, Strategic Partner and Alliances Manager. 

SHE Software is pleased to announce The Ambassador Theatre Group as a new customer of its health and safety software, Assure. 

Given the challenging nature of work, it’s no surprise that the recycling sector is classed as one of the most dangerous to work in, with HSE reporting one of the highest rates of workplace injury and work-related ill-health.

Health and safety doesn’t happen behind desks. So why are so many of our health and safety processes still desk based?

The workforce is rapidly changing and evolving. Digital disruption, coupled with an increasingly mobile and global workforce, has driven a huge shift in workplace culture and practices. What is emerging is a more remote, disperse international workforce.

The retail chain, Iceland, has been fined £2.5 million following a sentencing hearing after the death of a contactor at one of its stores in Rotherham. 

Described as the ‘Oscars for the technology industry’, the annual Enterprise Awards in association with the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists celebrate and recognise the very best of the UK’s technology entrepreneurial talent.

SHE Software and Capita Real Estate & Infrastructure have announced a new partnership, to provide health and safety software solutions which help clients to improve visibility and control over risk.

Fire may well be one of the greatest threats to the low-paid and illegal workers in Britain. This follows an investigation made by Channel 4’s Dispatches programme which used undercover reporters to expose factory conditions in Leicester.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has been censured by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) for the third time in a year following the death of an agency driver who was crushed by a reversing vehicle. This calls into question once and for all whether it is time for MoD to lose its Crown immunity.

There is much to commend Corporate Social Responsibility consultant Anna Johansson’s recent article, Employee Health & Safety Should be CSR Priorities (Triple Pundit, Friday, Jan 20th, 2017).

Previously, Councils in New Zealand had a varied approach to the assessment and evaluation of health and safety systems submitted as a part of tenders and for work completed under contracts and purchase orders, and in some instances Contractors involved in non-tendered work often had no or inadequate health and safety systems in place.

The process will help Councils ensure contractors working for or on Council assets and/or supplying services have effective health and safety systems in place, to prevent harm to people and the environment or damage to property.

Occupational safety in large organisations is an area that requires robust governance processes to ensure compliance across all levels. This compliance can often be difficult to manage due to outdated methods of process management.

Contractor safety management has evolved significantly, yet it still has a long way to go, specifically with aligning safety expectations, programs, cultures, and strategies between contractors and the client organisations that engage them.

 What does your organisation do to manage the risks associated with employee fatigue? Those working in certain sectors, such as the haulage industry, will be familiar with the strict rules surrounding drivers’ hours and the implications of getting it wrong.

Last month, new rules governing all building and construction projects across the UK came into full effect as the Government’s Construction Design and Management (CDM) Regulations Bill finally went on to the statute books.

On November 3 the Sentencing Council published its Definitive Sentencing Guidelines for Health and Safety Offences*.  These largely confirm what had been set out in consultation – namely that the potential fine will vary with the size of the organisation (and therefore ability to pay), level of culpability and harm category (a combination of the likelihood of harm and the seriousness of the harm risked).  A number of tables summarise the fines, which range up to £10m for a large (>£50m turnover) organisation with very high culpability.  Even a £10m turnover company could face fines ranging up to £4m.

SHE Software is set to make it's Australian debut at the Safety in Action Conference in Melbourne on 15-17th September 2015.

We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the British Museum on the fantastic achievement of 1,000,000 man hours worked without a major incident!

Andrew Sharman is a great friend of SHE Software.  As one of his passions is safety he's defined a career in helping companies keep their people safe from harm and by elevating safety to the top of the leadership agenda. Is it surprising then that his other passions include paragliding, extreme sports, and swimming with sharks?

The majority of UK health and safety rules will have been simplified by the time the current parliamentary session ends in May, "without compromising health and protection for workers", according to the government.

Sean Elson of Pinsent Masons urged clients, designers and construction firms to make themselves aware of the changes ahead of their implementation on 6 April, as "only very limited transitional arrangements" were available. The draft guidance, published by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) alongside the final regulations, could change slightly before the regulations receive parliamentary approval, but the "headline" changes would remain the same, Elson said.

In her latest blog post HSE Chair Judith Hackitt reflects on the achievements of the HSE in it's 40 year history and highlights the importance of having the right people to implement and manage health & safety to compliment systems and processes.

SHE Software is proud to welcome Knightstone Housing Association as a customer.

The number of major incidents in the waste and recycling sector has fallen below a five-year average, the latest statistics from the health and safety (HSE) executive indicate.

12^th August 2014, East Kilbride - SHE Software announces an important expansion of solution functionality in offline questionnaires/auditing with the acquisition of Leeds based Mobile Safety Solutions (MSS).  MSS have been at the forefront of offline app development for a number of years and the acquisition builds on SHE’s status as the industry leader in online Health and Safety Software.  

Laura Cameron, a partner at law firm Pinsent Masons, believes that greater employee awareness and a stricter approach by watchdog the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) could lead to more firms being inspected, and potentially prosecuted, in future.

Following our recent series of very well attended local authority webinars looking at how safety management software reduces risk, incidents and claims, we are holding a live Q&A session with one of our most innovative local authority customers using our safety management software.

We are pleased to announce that SHE Software is launching a series of complimentary webinars specifically developed for the healthcare industry.  Each webinar will look at a different area of non-clinical safety management and will offer guidance on how safety management software will help keep healthcare organisations compliant in accordance with HSG65.

Heartbleed emerged this week as a major security flaw at the heart of the internet that may have been exposing users' personal information and passwords to hackers for the past two years.

Happy World Backup Day!! While it may not be as monumental as the Eiffel Tower, as hot as a Bunsen Burner or as colorful as Crayola Crayons (all of which also have their 'day' today) the subject of backing up electronic data is very serious and often overlooked until it is too late.

We were pleased to learn that that two of our education customers have been awarded ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted.

Data drives the operations of today’s largest organisations and the mantra ‘what get’s measured gets managed’ has never been more important to health and safety management professionals. With new safety management software technology comes the opportunity to collect, analyse and compare data on near misses, the relative safety performance of branch sites and facilities, staff training levels and much more. Collecting great data leads to great safety management systems.

We recently looked at how a renewed impetus on safety can reinvigorate a workforce and improve motivation and now we’d like to go into a bit more detail about to undertake such a programme. A considered roll out of any new procedures or working practices is essential not just to gaining initial acceptance but also to guaranteeing long-term adherence.

Believe it or not, there’s much, much more to Twitter than footballers putting their foot in it and Justin’s army of Beliebers. To prove it, SHE Software has collected a list of safety’s social media heavyweights that make essential following for safety professionals and anyone that maintains a safety management system. It’s by no means comprehensive so if you have any you’d like to add, feel free to get in touch.

April 2014 sees the end of support for Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Exchange Server 2003, Small Business Server 2003 and Office 2003.

Health and safety management and compliance in the workplace can mean one of two things: box-ticking and lip service (i.e. the bare minimum), or a conscious effort to implement a genuine improvement. Considering that proper HSE management procedures are well known to be major contributing factors to a positive working environment, it’s easy to see which is preferable.

Health and safety is often met by groans quickly followed by an anecdote about an overzealous deployment of restrictive safety management systems. And it’s true; there is no shortage of examples of health and safety lazily being invoked as an excuse to block some fairly innocuous activities.

Last week the Health and Safety Executive published its annual statistics, which showed that in Britain between April 2011 and March 2012 the number of major injuries and injuries that kept employees off work for four or more days continued to fall, along with the number of cases of work-related ill-health.

A recent study by the Trade Union Congress (TUC) revealed that among employees’ chief work-related concerns is the impact of the age of austerity on workplace safety – job cuts have increased the demand placed on those employees that remain and there is a perceived slacking-off of HSE inspections. The TUC surveyed 1,875 safety reps and 45 per cent claimed their company had never been checked by health & safety management authorities. One in ten claimed there had been no visit for more than three years.

The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) is introducing a cost recovery scheme, Fee for Intervention (FFI), to recoup costs from those breaking health and safety laws. From  October, companies that are found by the HSE to be in ‘material breach’ of health and safety regulations will be asked to pay a recovery cost, under proposals currently being examined by a House of Lords Committee.

Taking a consistent approach to health and safety management can make running your business more time- and cost-effective. It can help reduce the number of errors and the cost of correcting problems, and ensure you comply with legislation.

The National Examination Board in Occupational Safety and Health (NEBOSH) trains 35,000 candidates each year over 500 vocationally-related qualifications for today’s health and safety professionals. A popular area with students in recent years has been the adoption of safety software and technology in health and safety and its potential. We’ve noticed this because we’re often contacted with requests for data and evidence to back up various hypotheses.

Indian debut set for SHE Software’s Assure, a revolution in safety management software, at OSH India 2013

All too often, opportunities arise for employers to criticise health & safety ‘red tape’ for being such a burden that it affects the competitiveness of their business.

A new report published September 24 by Stirling University Professors Andrew Watterson and Rory O’Neill places blame on HSE budget cutbacks for the major increase in workplace injuries in the UK. The report shows that over the past five years, major and fatal workplace injuries have increased by 2,700 per year.

A special guest blog from the International Institute of Risk and Safety Management’s Brian Nimick, on the maltreatment of migrant labour in the UK…

Outstanding Achievement award: Olympic Construction / Health & Safety Executive

This year has been a mixed bag for health and safety management. Highlights include the safety systems of the HSE being praised for the part they played in delivering the Olympic project safely and on time without a single fatality and for limiting construction accidents to just 0.16 per 100,000 hours worked on site, way below the industry average of 0.55.

According to the ONS there were nearly 4,000 mergers and acquisitions between 2005 and 2011. Last year alone there were 373.

There’s a great deal of useful information and resources for health and safety management professionals online. From blogs to forums, news sites to social media.  To help you get your bearings, we’ve analysed what’s out there and listed our top 10 health and safety websites:

A guest post by Nigel Bryson, Director, BRYSON Consulting.

On 1st October 2012 the Health & Safety Executive’s (HSE) cost recovery scheme came into effect. Known as Fee for Intervention (FFI), it is designed to recoup the costs of investigating and bringing to court those found to be in ‘material breach’ of health and safety laws. From now on these companies will be ordered to pay a recovery cost, charged at a set hourly rate of £124 per hour and based on the amount of time taken for HSE inspectors to identify a breach of legislation and to conclude any necessary regulatory action.

Over sixty workplaces were recognised by Healthy Working Lives as having implemented effective health and safety systems in a practical, logical way at its annual awards ceremony at the City of Glasgow College on October 11.

The National Safety Symposium, held by the Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) from September 2-4, brought renewed focus on the difficulties often identified by business leaders of managing health and safety requirements in the current economic climate. A survey commissioned by IOSH on this topic reveals a great deal about how UK business leaders approach health and safety management in theory and in practice.

A ‘blitz on red tape’ was announced on September 10 by Business Minister Michael Fallon. From next April, binding rules will be implemented on both the Health & Safety Executive and local authorities. The new initiative will exempt hundreds of thousands of businesses from health and safety inspections. In addition, the Government has set a goal to either scrap or overhaul 3,000 of the 6,000 current regulations.

A 12-week consultation has begun on changes to the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR). If these proposals go through, they could increase the burden on companies, so the focus should be on improving internal health and safety management.

SHE Software Ltd has achieved ISO 9001 and 27001 Certification (Quality and Security respectively).  After working closely with our partner ISO Quality Services Limited we achieved accreditation in June 2012.

Two weeks ago our post, Health and Safety Management in the Current Economic Climate, addressed the perception of many business leaders that health and safety policies are difficult to manage in an unfavourable economic environment.  Nigel Bryson in his book, Zero Harm, highlights that business leaders have a lot to gain, especially during a downturn, from listening to the suggestions of their employees regarding the best ways to implement effective and efficient health and safety leadership policy.