The Truth Behind Health And Safety’s Most Prominent Myths

At the core of every business is health and safety, and every organisation will make decisions on a top-down level that will affect the well-being of their staff, from trade workwear orders to risk assessments.

Because of the sheer ubiquity of health and safety regulations, legislation and advice that permeates throughout our working lives, there is a lot of space for vital protective advice to become second nature.

Unfortunately, that space can sometimes lead to the perpetuation of misconceptions and myths in the world of health and safety. In the spirit of public service, here are some of the biggest and the truth behind the falsehood.

Health And Safety Is More Than Common Sense

A rather uncurious assertion that is sometimes stated is that health and safety advice is redundant because protecting yourself from injuries is a simple matter of “common sense”.

The issue with defining “common sense” notwithstanding, the prevention of accidents is about managing and mitigating risks on a larger level and averting serious consequences, rather than putting the responsibility wholly on the individual.

Protecting employees requires not only individual effort but the commitment of employers to apply top-down approaches, enforce stringent guidelines, supply adequate equipment and provide training commensurate with the complexities and risks of a task.

Safety is ultimately systemic, and accidents are reflective of a failure of these systems of protection, rather than individual errors.

The Goal Of An Accident-Free Workplace Is Problematic

This is a somewhat controversial statement, as the ultimate holistic goal of safety is to make all accidents preventable and then actively prevent them, but seeking out an accident-free workplace can be somewhat problematic and impractical.

Given that it is possible for someone to injure themselves whilst walking, sitting and lying down, it is more than prudent to assume that accidents will happen. The more complex the work environment, the more likely that one of the many causal variables of an accident may occur.

What can be done is to reduce the potential risk that an accident will lead to a serious injury, and encourage staff and managers to be open and willing to discuss the factors that led to an accident and what can be done to reduce it in future.

The problem with an accident-free workplace goal is that it provides a perverse incentive to underreport safety incidents, which, paradoxically, can make a workplace less safe. 

This does not mean accepting that accidents are inevitable, but it means prioritising the safety and lives of employees over a perfect record.

Safety Equipment Is Always Value For Money

The Oscar Wilde play Lady Windemere’s Fan famously describes a cynic as someone who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing, and several common myths about the cost of protective equipment. 

The first point is that safety equipment is not that expensive even taken in isolation, but a much bigger point is that the price of PPE is much cheaper than the cost of the consequences of not having adequate protection.

Besides the more drastic consequences of injuries, deaths and business disruption, the perception of unsafe workplaces leads to poor performance, high turnover, low morale, damage to reputation and ultimately harm to the business itself.