FEATURE
A pioneering project at The Royal Bank of Scotland has leveraged local specialist experience to develop a global strategy for occupational health
Interpreting occupational health
I
f you picture the employees of a bank, you might be forgiven for conjuring an image of people sitting at desks working with computers. And while that’s exactly what most of The Royal Bank of Scotland Group’s 145,000 employees worldwide do, the Bank also employs people internationally in warehouses, at roadsides, and in industrial settings. Amanda Owen is Group Head of Safety, Health
& Wellbeing and Diversity at RBS. “In tough global trading conditions, it’s more important than ever to demonstrate our commitment to our people”, she says. “Occupational health programs are crucial in creating an environment in which every employee’s health and wellbeing needs are met”. Yet as the Bank discovered, any global organization faces wide variations in occupational health worldwide. “We want nothing less than 100% compliance with legal occupational health
requirements in every country in which we operate”, says
Amanda. “At the same time, we have a responsibility to manage the delivery of services as cost-effectively and efficiently as possible. We knew we had pockets of best practices. But we wanted to take a more systematic and transparent approach to occupational health provision.”
Common vision RBS already had medical and security membership with International SOS as part of its duty of care to employees. “We’d seen at first hand International SOS’ ability to manage and deliver complex programs on a global scale”, explains Amanda. But instead of choosing a single occupational health provider, the Bank realized that a different approach was needed. “We wanted to work with International SOS at a more strategic level, to ensure we have the right services, delivered by the right suppliers and at the right price”.
The first step was to commission an International SOS consulting team to analyze the occupational health requirements in 39 countries, and to identify RBS’ existing provision in each.
Nick Hedges is Business Development Director at
International SOS and managed the consulting project for the Bank. “Occupational health is an area that’s very open to interpretation, especially between different cultures”, he says. “The challenge was to analyze requirements and settings across a huge range of regulatory frameworks.” Before starting the analysis, the team held a series of workshops with key stakeholders from RBS as well as international occupational health experts from International SOS. “This team explored what the Bank meant by occupational health, looked more closely at the issue of compliance, and created a shared vision of occupational health as part of a global health and safety strategy”, says Nick.
6 Hotline Issue 1, 2011
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