Adapting to new pressures
Most EHS professionals believe their business is reasonably mature in its health and safety approach. However, not everything is being managed - or monitored.
While the majority of organisations report a medium level of maturity in their health and safety management, fewer are implementing key strategies and KPIs compared to last year, according to the 2025 Health & Safety Report, produced by RS and Health & Safety Matters.
51 per cent of respondents to this year’s report label their environmental, health and safety (EHS) maturity level as medium, which has fallen slightly from 54 per cent the previous year.
Accident prevention remains the biggest priority for professionals, with 37 per cent ranking it as the most important element. This is followed by systems at 22 per cent and culture change at 13 per cent.
The most common strategy deployed by organisations is around systems, with 84 per cent reporting having one in place. This is closely followed by accident prevention (82%) and fire prevention management (81%).
However, there has been a small but consistent year-on-year decline in organisations reporting accident prevention, fire prevention, mental health support and cultural change strategies.
John Barnacle-Bowd, Vice President, Health, Safety and Environment at RS Group, points out that fire risk assessments are a legal requirement, and argues this should be on the agenda for every organisation.
“It’s not just about keeping people safe; it’s also the infrastructure of your facility,” he points out. This should go beyond installing fire doors and alarm systems, he adds, and include measures that would protect the building from damage when no one is there.
Steven Harris, Managing Director of Integrity HSE, suggests such elements may be incorporated into broader initiatives, even if there is no dedicated strategy. “Things like accident prevention strategies and fire prevention strategies may be integrated within other strategies within the business,” he points out. “When we put reactive strategies in, and even when we use the wording like ‘accident prevention strategies’, in my experience it instils a lack of confidence in what we’re doing.”
Identifying the cultural change-makers
More than half of organisations (55%) have a cultural change initiative. But attempting to embed health and safety into the wider ethos of the business is no easy matter, says Barnacle-Bowd. “Culture change doesn’t happen overnight. Health and Safety can add to changing the culture, they can’t drive that,” he says. “Management has to drive a culture in any organisation. It's got to be top-down, and a bit of bottom-up.”
Where health and safety professionals can make a difference, though, is in persuading leaders of the importance of safety, and of maintaining an effective EHS function. “We can help reduce accident and injury costs, leading to less sick pay and overtime to cover the gaps in the workforce,” he points out.
“We can ensure equipment meets the requirements of the regulations and get this regularly maintained, which will reduce downtime. We can help them drive a positive safety culture which will lead to engaged employees that want to work for the business.”
Engaging with the wider workforce is also vital, says Harris, which can be done through creating specific groups. “It’s about mentoring and coaching them on the behaviours that are needed, and explaining why,” he says.
“We need to identify the informal hierarchies: the real change-makers who own the culture. They might not have that managing director job title but they have a huge amount of influence. That way we can start effecting proper cultural change. Ultimately, knowledge breeds confidence.”
A decline in KPI monitoring
Key performance indicators (KPIs) remain a central tenet of how organisations measure health and safety performance, with 71 per cent measuring their all-accident rate.
Other measures, though, are less common; 61 per cent measure near-miss rate – down from 67 per cent the previous year – and 57 per cent record the total incident frequency rate. But only one in two (50%) record lost-time accident rate.
This is cause for concern, says Barnacle-Bowd, who believes these figures should be higher. “If you’re not measuring it, you’re not managing it,” he says. “Maybe it’s because they’re not having any accidents, so it’s dropped off the agenda. But what happens when they do have an accident? Does not having a KPI lead to complacency? Complacency can kill. As soon as you stop reporting and measuring, you stop having an active programme.”
One health and safety manager from the education sector is a strong advocate of KPIs. “The minute you start ignoring or failing to identify those trends, you’re going to miss the subtle shifts. That means that safety is going down the slippery slope where you don’t want it to go.
“But people also miss something with KPIs. It’s not always about identifying that we have done badly but an opportunity to celebrate the good.”
“We should be looking at those KPIs as a way of celebrating the things that we are achieving and keeping safety on the agenda.”
Health and Safety Manager, Education sector
Harris, though, warns that overly focusing on KPIs can be counterproductive. “Goodhart’s Law states that when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure,” he says. “I work with a lot of companies which have 20-25 KPIs but don’t truly understand how to interpret that data.
“Ideally with KPIs, you should be looking for somewhere between four to six,” he adds. “Often, it’s what falls between those KPIs, which you pick up with your governance examination, inspection, analysis and cultural surveys, that is most interesting. KPIs are great, but they can’t be relied on for an overall picture.”