Fundamental change is needed to the way we work

When it comes to workplace safety, Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) President and Hong Kong-based rail safety chief Professor Vincent Ho has seen it all. He believes OSH professionals should be working alongside business leaders to achieve their goals — safely.

This requires fundamental change in how well we manage work, pursuing a strong multidisciplinary approach to occupational health issues, both physical and mental. Prof. Ho takes time out of his busy schedule to share his thoughts with National Safety magazine on the challenges facing OSH professionals today.

As President of IOSH, the global work health and safety body, what do you believe are the most pressing issues facing safety managers today?

What we’re seeing is the ever-increasing demand for occupational safety and health professionals to develop fit-for-purpose business skills and behaviours required to improve the influence and impact of safer, healthier ways of working in their organisations.

This goes far beyond checking and compliance. There is a real need for rounded safety and health professionals able to work alongside business leaders and stakeholders helping them achieve their goals and deliver their strategies responsibly. We believe that going beyond legal compliance to create working conditions that are safe, healthy and promote wellbeing is essential for a sustainable workforce in a globalised world in which there are extended, complex and sometimes unregulated supply chains.

Among other issues safety and health managers increasingly need to face are the growing need to address psychosocial risks related to mental health and wellbeing; a greater focus on occupational health; demographic changes, lifestyle diseases and supporting safe and healthy extended working lives; adapting to the changing nature of work, with new work patterns and methods, the rise of remote working and more casual ‘platform’ working, and ensuring that flexibility doesn’t cause stress due to insecurity and isolation; how globalisation affects safety and health, OSH professionals’ duties to ensure all work is ‘good work’ throughout supply chains and that vulnerable workers are protected; and also keeping pace with changing materials and technologies, such as nanotechnology, automation and artificial intelligence.

Prof. Ho promoting a safe culture at MTR. Image credit: ©Vincent Ho

Have you observed a difference in attitude towards safety culture from country to country? Or is it more about safety culture varying from industry to industry?

Both perspectives are true: there is variance between country cultures; there are variances in different parts of global businesses operating worldwide; there is variance between industry sectors; there can even be variance between units on the same site or within different shift teams. The influence of cultures on behaviour, and other factors, are the subject of lively debate. The reality is that professionals in our sector need to work with and manage this complexity.

It is vitally important for OSH professionals to accept this reality of our operating environments, recognise and identify differences and set out how greater consistency can be achieved. A combination of the right competencies, understanding of strategic business objectives and excellent OSH management systems can help embed consistent high standards.

Cultural diversity needs to be managed within organisations; with growing proportions of migrant workers and multinational firms, managers require cross-cultural adaptability and leadership skills. Research has identified that migrant workers can be particularly at-risk and tend to be in low-paid, unskilled and hazardous jobs, so these risks must be managed and any language barriers overcome.

Prof. Ho travels widely for his role with IOSH. Here, he is in India. Image credit: ©IOSH

You are Head of Corporate Safety for MTR Corporation, a multinational rail operator which has at least 5.8 million travellers daily in Hong Kong alone with a total of more than 12 million worldwide. This scale is hard for Australians to imagine. What are the top 3 safety challenges that you seek to mitigate at MTR?

We are facing several of the same challenges as many mature networks around the world: an ageing workforce, rapidly growing demand on stressed infrastructures, increasingly complex rules and technologies, etc.

These are interlaced, multidimensional issues compounded by longer working hours and mostly linked to fatigue, mental illness, human errors, and loss in productivity and revenue. Some networks were designed decades ago and simply struggle to cope with the large number of passengers using them. Daily crowd management also exerts more pressures on staff — and we see rule books getting thicker every time there is an inquiry into an incident.

There is no magic bullet for all this, but the drive to overcome these challenges must start from top management, who must see safety commitments as an investment instead of a cost. Researchers have found that every dollar invested well into safety investment saves the company around two dollars.

Savings and opportunities can come from reducing time lost due to injuries, avoiding losses of productivity, enhancing work efficiency, saving training costs for replacement workers… to name just a few benefits.

How often do you see management willing to throw in tens of millions of dollars rushing to fix the aftermath of an accident but reluctant to increase safety budgets by a small fraction to prevent the recurrence of accidents?

Prof. Ho visiting an underground MTR construction site at Shenzhen, China. Image credit: ©Vincent Ho

You have over 30 years’ experience in safety management. What have been the biggest changes related to the way safety is managed?

IOSH believes a fundamental change is needed in how well we manage work, pursuing a strong multidisciplinary approach to occupational health issues, both physical and mental. Health needs to be managed more systematically, in the same way that safety is, and harmful exposures prevented.

Fortunately, there is evidence that a more systematic approach to workplace safety and health is starting to be adopted by the best organisations, with more emphasis on leadership, worker involvement, competence and health and wellbeing, as well as safety.

Company boards are now more ‘OSH literate’ and they look for the business benefits of implementing better systems. There is good evidence of how good safety and health management not only reduces costs but can also improve efficiencies and productivity throughout supply chains. Good work is good for workers’ health and wellbeing, has been linked to higher productivity and can support corporate reputation, resilience and results.

Greater attention being paid to managing OSH in supply chains contributes to sustainability and transparency, and we now have better ways to capture and use data, better access to information via the internet and an improved range of communication tools including social media.

Finally, I’m pleased to see more recognition of occupational safety and health as a profession reflected in better professional qualifications incorporating ‘soft skills’, influencing and integration within business strategies.

Prof. Ho is President of IOSH, the world's biggest professional health and safety membership organisation. Image credit: ©IOSH

You’re an advocate for the use of technology to improve safety. What types of technology are having the greatest impact on safety today? What would you like to see more of?

Examples of technological advances that are improving working lives include digitisation, building information management (BIM), virtual and augmented reality, mobile technologies and connected societies, so long as this fosters flexibility, creativity and inclusivity. However, we need to avoid stress, musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) and poor work-life balance caused by some of these.

Automation can relieve people of dangerous work, repetitive tasks and heavy lifting through the well-designed use of robotics, drones, autonomous vehicles, etc, but we must guard against cyber risks and stress and always include fail-safe measures.

Use of robotics and drones has already revolutionised the design and safety of many operational tasks and will continue to do so. Such technology can keep people remote from harm. For example, they don’t have to dive to great depths to carry out undersea inspections because a submarine drone can do it; they can avoid working at height by using aerial drones for inspections. In the nuclear sector, which I know well, robots can handle hazardous materials very well.

Wearable technology is another area of interest for OSH, where this helps monitor hazard exposure at work (if it protects privacy and confidential data) and safely enhances human capabilities. Linked to this, AI and sensors that form part of the Internet of Things could facilitate safer work activities, for instance in logistical operations and providing health data analysis, but use of this must always remain in people’s best interests, applying security and ethical guidelines.

Prof. Ho singing at the gala dinner of the APOSHO 33 conference, for which he was Chairman. Image credit: ©Vincent Ho

With technology changing so rapidly, new industries are coming into existence and existing industries are rapidly changing (eg, taxis and Uber). How can safety regulators keep up with the changes?

Safety regulators should be risk based in their approach and evidence driven in their responses. When risk management is properly employed it will help to define policy and procedure content and inform the design of robust management systems.

We feel it is important for regulators to ‘horizon scan’ and engage stakeholders in thinking about and responding to emerging trends. Regulators (just like all of us) need to keep learning and sharing their experience, regulatory intelligence and research findings to inform good-practice knowledge exchange between regulators via networks like SLIC and IALI.

Finally, it would be helpful for regulators to develop new ways of working to adapt regulation to new work situations like the informal economy, 24/7 availability, home working, mobile working and platform working. In Europe, the EU is working on new rules for more transparent and predictable working conditions.

You’re teaching young minds about safety at universities in Hong Kong. If you had to describe to them the qualities of an outstanding safety manager, what would they be?

I have the opportunity to give back to society through teaching in the Electrical Engineering Department of the University of Hong Kong, the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and in Nuclear and Risk Engineering at the City University of Hong Kong. I always tell students to equip themselves with sound communication skills; they must be able to communicate their ideas logically.

Prof. Ho speaking to students. Image credit: ©Vincent Ho

That is exactly the same skillset that an outstanding safety manager must have. A safety manager should be the source of knowledge, and to be able to act as a champion, supporter, adviser, advocate and trainer for safety and health in organisations of all sizes.

Safety managers must continue to enhance their skills and their knowledge of innovative applications throughout their careers so they can collaborate and influence stakeholders for a better, safer future.

Professor Vincent Ho is a keynote speaker at SAFETYconnect 2019, incorporating the National Safety Conference, at the Crown Conference Centre, Melbourne from 28–29 August 2019. Register now for early bird tickets, available until 30 June.

 Top image: Prof. Ho being filmed at ICOH 2018. Image credit: ©IOSH