Shaming companies and executives enhances safety: Report

A leading Australian workplace safety expert has called for regulators to generate public relations "crises" for employers in the event of OHS failures, to provide incentives for improvement.

The latest issue of the Law and Policy Journal includes an article by Professor Andrew Hopkins from the Australian National University. Beyond compliance monitoring: new strategies for safety regulators, advocates workplace safety authorities taking a more vigorous and proactive approach in ensuring compliance.

A key part of this strategy is to undermine the public perception of companies with bad safety records, and to "shame" and prosecute senior executives. "Even in the absence of a major accident, there are ways in which regulators can promote a regulatory crisis for organisations that do not appear to be sufficiently focussed on safety," Hopkins says.

He believes that the best way to improve safety within organisations is to change the organisational structure into one that incorporates a "safety culture". He outlines the following key strategies to achieve this.

Auditing the auditors

Hopkins believes major incidents occur through a lack of identification of hazards, and having inadequate procedures, training and protective equipment. Therefore, he wants inspectors not to look for evidence that hazards have been identified, but rather, to ascertain how effective the hazard identification process and the staff training systems are.

He says this brings into question the effectiveness of the whole company's auditing process, and the more embarrassing the oversight, the better, as this will force the company to significantly improve its audit system.

Proactive investigation

This underpins the whole investigative process, as it exposes the failures in the system that led to an incident occurring.

Hopkins says that minor and major incidents are preceded by warning signs, which should be picked up by a hazard identification system. He says that if safety failures are obvious to inspectors, they would have been obvious to employees, and the inspector should then ask why they weren't reported before an incident occurred?

Proactive investigation is identified by Hopkins as the strategy for taking warning signs seriously and identifying ways in which safety systems are failing before an incident occurs.

Supporting safety staff

Hopkins says that by having direct lines of communication between safety officers and chief executives, you give safety officers "clout" within an organisation. He believes the level of clout is enhanced if officers have the support of regulators when they make decisions, often unpopular, in the interests of safety.

Therefore, he believes regulators should promote the effectiveness of safety officers, which will also increase the effectiveness of self regulation.

Advising on organisational design

Hopkins criticises safety management systems for consisting of "manuals on shelves". He says that a safety culture is characterised by being just and flexible, and encouraging learning and reporting.

By having a flexible culture, an organisation can assemble teams of people best equipped to make relevant decisions, rather than centralising decision making in one person. Hopkins promotes an internal system where safety officers report directly to their most senior manager, and not through a human resources manager or intermediary.

He believes there is a role for regulators to "prod" companies that do not have such arrangements to move in this direction.

Exposing performance

Good safety performance depends on the commitment of top management, with Hopkins wanting regulators to motivate managers to make this commitment.

An effective way to do this, according to Hopkins, is for regulators to "embarrass" managers at companies with poor safety records to motivate them to do better. He recommends the release of comparative data - such as lost time injury frequency rates of poorly performing companies or worksites - as possible ways to do this.

He also says regulators should promote the use of such indicators within organisations and industries as an effective way to improve safety independently of regulatory action.

Promoting regulatory crises

This is the most controversial aspect of Hopkins's analysis.

He says that the major motivation for executives to comply with legislative requirements is the fear of regulatory and public relations consequences of non-compliance, and that compliance usually only comes about after a regulatory crisis or disaster.

Therefore, Hopkins suggests there is a role "for the inspectorate in creating regulatory crises for companies".

He says regulators are in a "good position to generate a mini-crisis for organisations" by prosecuting them after incidents and exposing them to negative publicity. Similarly, he says in the absence of a major incident, the issue of improvement or prohibition notices should be publicised. The failure to publicise regulatory action, according to Hopkins, seriously undermines the impact of enforcement measures.

Hopkins warns regulators that they need to be "strategic" when creating an organisational crisis, such as issuing a press release to "orchestrate a public response". He says the aim of such action should always be to generate a crisis as a stimulant to change.

He says that by prosecuting the most senior officers at large companies, regulators can broaden the crisis for an organisation. Hopkins cites the prosecution of mine officials following the Gretley coal mine disaster as making managers at all levels of the companies involved much more aware of their duty of care.

Hopkins believes a regulatory crisis provides a window of opportunity for regulators to promote change, as that will be when an organisation is most susceptible.

Beyond Compliance Monitoring: New Strategies for Safety Regulators, Andrew Hopkins, Australia. Law and Policy, Volume 29, Issue 2, April 2007.

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