RR580 - Using soft people skills to improve worker involvement in health and safety
The involvement of workers is widely believed to be central to the achievement of improved organisational performance across many dimensions, including that of effective health and safety management. Many organisations claim that worker involvement in their decision-making and management has resulted in quantifiable benefits, such as improved change management, more responsive customer service provision, better dispute resolution, reduced labour turnover, and reduced sickness absence and accident rate. There is also a wider public policy agenda to promote workplace information and consultation, which has resulted, in part, in the passage of the Information and Consultation of Employees Regulations of 2005. These Regulations require large organisations of 150+ employees to involve and consult their employees over fundamental issues that affect their working lives, such as organisational change. (The Regulations will be extended in April 2007 to cover organisations of 100+ employees, and then in 2008 to organisations of 50+ employees.)
This report and the work it describes were funded by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). Its contents, including any opinions and/or conclusions expressed, are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect HSE policy.
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