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SHOW PREVIEW: HEALTH & SAFETY NORTH


CONFERENCES & SEMINARS


Health & Safety North’s main conference programme, curated by the event’s educational partner the British Safety Council, promises invaluable presentations from a line-up of industry leaders. Highlights will include a session on the results of a new study to identify the UK’s healthiest workplaces. Sean Subel, Programme Director of the Britain’s Healthiest Workplace initiative, will provide an overview of the scheme, highlight key trends from the just published 2017 report and explain how employers can learn from its findings and benchmark their own performance.


The main Conference Theatre will also be well populated for a legal update from Rhian Greaves, a legal director specialising in safety, health and environment at Clyde & Co. The 2016 changes to health and safety sentencing guidelines are still a big concern for business of all sizes, she said. “Since the new guidelines were introduced, we’ve been analysing trends. One of the findings is that while large companies are being fined very significant amounts of money, they typically represent less than 0.1% of turnover, whereas small and medium companies might face fines that are equivalent to 3% or more of their turnover. We’ll be discussing whether that is deliberate or perhaps an unintended consequence of the guidelines.”


Since 95% of health and safety cases result in a conviction, the session will also provide guidance on how companies can help themselves manage investigations to put themselves in the best possible position. “The sentencing guidelines include mitigating factors and it’s clear that by fully cooperating with an investigation following an incident, over and above the minimum expectation, a company can improve its position if this is done in the right way,” she said.


Looking forward, Greaves will discuss the potential impact of Brexit on health and safety regulation, and the possible legal implications of the Health and Safety Executive’s increased focus on health and wellbeing in addition to conventional safety considerations


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Practical tips on improving workplace wellbeing will be shared by highly-respected author and culture change expert Tim Marsh, founder of Ryder-Marsh Safety. “The fact that wellbeing is widely understood these days is very positive but in terms of how we address it via a practical and holistic set of inter-related methodologies we are decades behind the more established processes that are used to promote safety,” he said. “We are world-class in safety but we have some way to go on wellbeing. It’s important we address this because the figures speak for themselves. The number of people who die at work each year is dwarfed by the number of people of working age who commit suicide. In addition, there are many more people who are struggling with stress and other mental health problems, which mean they cannot possibly be producing their best work, and that has a tangible impact on business performance.”


The event will mark the official launch of Marsh’s new book, A Handbook of Organised Wellbeing, published by the British Safety Council and co-written with its policy, Standards and Communications Director Louise Ward. Marsh will be sharing advice for employers on ways to bring about change, including practical examples from all areas of industry.


Staying on the theme of workplace wellbeing, business training company The 2Macs will deliver its new stress awareness workshop to help attendees recognise and respond to signs of struggle in themselves, their colleagues and their employees. The company, which specialises in health and safety training, uses interactive drama and trained actors to help people absorb new ideas and make practical changes to workplace behaviours.


Session leader Harry Gallagher explained: “We have been providing workplace learning programmes for over 20 years and we’ve found that if training is enjoyable, people engage with i=t much more readily and remember the guidance that came out of it. The management of stress has become a major challenge for businesses so we wanted to develop a new session that would help people address it effectively. Seeing people on stage expressing different emotions and reacting in different ways provides the audience with a deeper understanding than they might get from reading a handout, for example.”


Elsewhere in the conference programme, there will be a look at the outcomes of the Mates In Mind initiative, which is designed to improve mental health in the construction sector.


A highlight of the second day will a mock trial, in which the audience serve as a jury considering a case involving a forklift incident.


Meanwhile, the Safety Dialogue Theatre, sponsored by 3M, offers a series of panel discussions in which experts will debate topics including respiratory health, hearing protection, working at height and the latest developments in training and competence.


Elsewhere, there will be a number of networking opportunities and an extensive show floor providing demonstrations and displays by around 200 exhibitors.


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