Volume
4 Issue 1 |
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| This Issue Feature Article: Corporate Governance - The Role of the EH&S professional
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Corporate
Governance – The Role of the EH&S Professional
In
the UK, when the Director/CEO of an outdoor pursuits company was
prosecuted and jailed by the courts for safety failures by his company[2]
corporate accountability entered a new era where it was no longer
sufficient for the Board to be focussed on the interests of major
shareholders, and liable only as a corporate entity, whilst leaving the
day to day running of the company to Management, including the
responsibility and individual liability for any failures, (safety or
otherwise). This
decision meant that not only had the Board of any company to have due
regard to the interests of those affected by the workings of the company,
but that the members of the Board could and would be held severally liable
for the failures of Management. In effect the roles and responsibilities within the company
are now recognised in law as being so intrinsically linked that
culpability flows upward to the Board and the chairman rather than
downwards to the weakest and thus most vulnerable employee. Recent
events at Enron and WorldCom, the investigation into and the report on
Ansbacher in Ireland focus primarily on financial irregularities at the
top of companies. Billions of
dollars have been lost and the financial markets have been shaken to the
core as a consequence of the activities of a few powerful individuals,
illustrating all too well the central role that Boards and individual
Board members have to the well being of their companies and to the
communities (social and financial) in which they operate.
The OECD Principles on Corporate Governance emphasises the
“degree to which corporations observe basic principles of good corporate
governance is an increasingly important factor for investment decisions”
and that “employees and other stakeholders play an important role in
contributing to the long-terms success and performance” of the company.[3] It
is crucial therefore that the roles, responsibilities and relationships
within companies and between companies and their social, economic and
judicial environments are reviewed continuously to ensure that within the
corporate governance framework the rights of all stakeholders, as
established by law, are protected and respected.
There is one particular aspect of the corporate governance
framework that relates to the role of the EH&S Professional and in
that respect an alternative model for the structuring of individual and
corporate safety that ensures statutory compliance, meets with the
requirements of the OECD principles and attains performance optimisation
has been gaining increasing attention at the highest levels of management. A
key issue facing the EH&S professional is his[4]
role in respect of the company’s requirement to ensure the safety and
well being of the workforce and the public.
All to often, responsibility for safety falls to the safety
professional and despite monumental efforts on his part, he is often
under-resourced, under-valued and scapegoated for failures on the part of
fellow managers. It is argued
that the EH&S professional is not responsible, beyond that laid on him
as an individual employee, for safety within the company but that he has a
valuable role to play in supporting and assisting those who do have the
responsibility for safety. The
model of operational analysis and control proposes a paradigm shift within
which safety is the responsibility of the Board and the EH&S
professional is a respected adjunct to the Management team, called upon to
advise and support his colleagues in the attainment of their performance
objectives. It
is a model for performance management that outlines the dialogical
relationship between a company’s objectives and its contemporaneous
situation and ensure a process capable of defining and achieving those
objectives without loss or injury, (human, financial or social). 6,000 + employees are unintentionally killed each year in the USA, and $127 bn. is lost to the economy as a direct result of workplace accidents. Governments are looking to the new crime of corporate killing and to the Board to lay the responsibility for such killings. The challenge for companies today is not how to circumvent the law and lay the blame for safety failures elsewhere, or to by-pass imprisonment by paying financial penalties for injuries to workers. It is not to make corporate governance work at it most basic principle by redressing those whose rights have been violated. No, the challenge for companies is to ensure that the framework of structures and procedures are designed to ensure that the company is fully capable of achieving it objectives in an effective and non-injurious manner. It is about establishing wealth, work and sustainability objectives, the means of attaining those objectives and procedures for monitoring and adjusting performance in the light of past events, current knowledge and the evolving situation. There can only be one standard of performance, namely that companies produce a product or service in a manner that will not injure workers or others, and that straightforward position, extended includes, no damage to the environment or to profitability. In other words it is not unreasonable to consider all the potential losses and put the proper controls in place prior to commencement. Proper management of the entire operation requires that operational outcomes are defined, resources provided and reviewed to consider the possibility of failure, prior to commencement, during the process and at various other stages. The
objective of integrating the highest standards of occupational safety and
health with improved business performance means that the end product or
service will be achieved in a manner that protects the employees, the
public and the company from harm. If
business performance, rather than the risk, is managed and the safety of
the operation controlled then the operation will be non-hazardous and the
outcome will always be non-injurious.
This is the objective of corporate governance, and the OAC model
will provide companies with the tools for the ensuring these outcomes. Footnotes: [1] OECD Principles of Corporate Governance, annotation to Principle V, Responsibilities of the Board. [2] A school project ended in disaster when a number of children were drowned on a canoeing activity organised by the company. [3] OECD Principles of Corporate Governance, preamble [4] The use of he & his is not gender specific. http://www.partnershipsuk.org.uk/advisory/index.htm There are additional links in Newswire Volume 3 Issue 3 Safety Exchange Just follow the link below to make use of the information in Safety Exchange. The following PowerPoint presentation was added in March 2003 1. Stephen Fulwell's PowerPoint - The Way Forward in OHSMS We are always on the look out for more packages. If you have PowerPoint’s that you wish to offer colleagues in exchange for other materials, drop web-safety.com a line. Safety Exchange.
Smoking
to be Banned in Work Places (Ireland)
On January 30th Michaela Martin, TD, Minister for Health & Children and Frank Fahey, TD Minister for Labour Affairs, launched the Report on the Health Effects of Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) in the Workplace by the Office of Tobacco Control and the Health & Safety Authority. The
purpose of the report was to ‘identify and report on the degree
of consensus that exists among leading international scientific
authorities on the question of the hazard and risk posed by environmental
tobacco smoke to human health in the workplace’. The report found: “In relation to
workplace exposure, many of the position statements specify that there is
compelling evidence that working with smoking co-workers per se increases
the risk of lung cancer.” (p.8) “Most of the evidence linking heart disease with ETS comes from studies of spousal smoking whereas studies of the relationship between ETS exposure in the workplace and cardiovascular disease are relatively sparse. However, there is no biologically plausible reason to believe that the hazards of ETS exposure that have been demonstrated in the home should not also apply to the workplace. The consistency of results across countries with different lifestyles and diets and the positive exposure response relationships are suggestive of a causal relationship. There is every reason to suspect that the adverse effects could be higher, given that ETS exposure as indicated by cotinine levels is considerably higher in the workplace.“ (p.10) It
concluded that
On the basis of this report the minister announced that he would introduce a prohibition on smoking tobacco products in places of work and has subsequently published draft regulations providing for this. Following a period of consultation his intention is to introduce the regulations in January 2004. Further information: Report
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