Management tasks and behaviour

“Failure to include health and safety as a key business risk in board decisions can have catastrophic results.
Members of the board have both collective and individual responsibility for health and safety”[8].
The priority a company and senior managers are giving to health and safety at work and the extent to which
managers use their authority to promote compliance with occupational health and safety rules and the
respective policy within the company motivates the individuals to orient their behaviour on the standards set by
management.
Clear actions showing visible commitment and general leadership behaviour in every day work notably
contribute to better occupational health and safety behaviour.
Positive and proactive styles of leadership are able to influence safety and health behaviour within
organisations [9].
The democratic leadership style ensuring employee participation by taking their decisions and opinions into
account supports good leadership influence on health and safety aspects at work.
ransformational leadership style based on the leader giving a good example via his behaviour and encouraging
employees to take over the leader´s ideals and copy the leader´s behaviour also positively contribute to a
healthy culture within a company.
Top managers are the ones responsible in giving a structure and facilitating the setup of a health and safety
culture. Simard (1998) gives examples on what top managers preferably should have in mind when setting up
the basics for a safety culture. He emphasises that upper management should take into account the existing
general company culture. A bureaucratic culture should for example be based on the reorientation of the
existing safety and health committee in a way that it supports the role of supervisors and work teams´ safety
involvement. A less structured culture should in the contrary put a major emphasis on the individual's
responsibility in every day working situations and encourage employees to actively take part in prevention by
for example being attentive and reporting near misses.
The priority that is given to health and safety depends however to a major part on the behaviour of managers.
According to Petersen[5], “a good leader makes it clear what will and will not work in the organisation´s safety
efforts”. The general framework for safety at work is guided by the management, having a clear definition of the
respective roles of all staff and giving instructions what activities are required to comply with the safety
responsibility [5]. Supervisors get unambiguous instructions from managers and are properly trained to fulfil their
safety and health tasks and to give instructions to employees. Defined targets are regularly measured and
controlled and feedback on necessary changes is regularly collected by managers and supervisors.
e Aspects mentioned by one of their brochures gives a good summary on the description of best management
behaviour regarding OSH commitment and improvement.

 Management knowledge on the importance of senior management behaviour for a proper occupational
health and safety culture is crucial.
 Health and Safety is mentioned to a wide range of audience by management whenever possible.
 Health and Safety is discussed first or at least early on the agenda of every meeting. Managers
concentrate in an equal manner on good and bad health and safety news, praising good behaviour and
news and taking bad news as an opportunity to improve the circumstances.
 Adequate resources are provided for health and safety aspects and employees are encouraged to be
proactively involved in the setting up of strategies, policies and measures on OSH.
 Performance measures show constantly how well the company performs in OSH aspects.
 Long term OSH goals are set by the management and continuous improvement is fostered.
 Managers visibly spend time with the workforce on OSH aspects.
 Health and safety issues are not only discussed among managers and supervisors but also with clients,
contractors and subcontractors.
 Supervisors and line management staff is held accountable for OSH as well as managers.
Role of managers in OHS

 Shop floor visits with the target to praise good occupational health and safety approaches and to address
unsafe behaviour by encouraging changes and looking at the causes for failure to follow the occupational
health and safety rules. These visits can also be useful in providing opportunities for employees to raise
any health and safety issues.
 Regular attendance of health and safety committee meetings as well as regularly including the health and
safety representative in management meetings
 Starting with the topic occupational health and safety during team meetings
 Active involvement in the investigation of accidents, near misses, incidents and ill health