2023 Spring Meeting and 19th Global Congress on Process Safety

(16c) It Starts at the Top - the Effect of Human Factors and Leadership on Safety

Author

The ILO (International Labour Organization, a United Nations agency) estimates that 2.3 million women and men succumb to work-related accidents or diseases every year, which is the equivalent to over 6,000 deaths per day.

Worldwide, there are around 340 million occupational accidents and 160 million victims of work-related illnesses annually. The cost of poor safety culture does not just harm a business, its employees, and the environment around it; it affects the entire business process and promotes an inability to change.

This presentation explores why human factors are behind such a high proportion of incidents and looks at what makes a true culture of safety and how the actions of the management of any company are always the differentiating factor.

It will then go on to look at how committed and effective leadership can drive safety culture excellence, so that plants can gain the advantages of greater productivity and profitability by embracing safety as a way of life as opposed to seeing it as a purely regulatory requirement.