Workplace Health

CIA and its member companies believe that everyone working on sites with chemicals needs to be active in health (and safety) leadership in order to help prevent incidents and ill health; this includes site operators, health and safety representatives, site management and contractors.

CIA champions Health & Wellbeing Leadership (one aspect of CIA’s Responsible Care Guiding Principles) – this looks after an organisation’s best resource, its people! The protection of workers’ health and safety together with the prevention of incidents and ill health are of high importance to the UK chemical industry. Our sector’s voluntary initiative, Responsible Care®, requires companies to go above and beyond compliance in all occupational health, safety and environment aspects. Under the Chemical Industries Association’s (CIA – the organisation that represents UK chemical and pharmaceutical businesses) Health & Wellbeing Leadership strategy, we work with our member companies towards achieving sustainable healthy workplaces through continuous improvement. We believe a healthy workforce is fundamental to the running of any business, yet recognise that workplace health may not always have the same status within an organisation’s safety, health and environment (SHE) agenda – all these elements are equally as important and have great synergy with each other.

Current Status

1. To support and facilitate continuous improvement, CIA works with members to develop signpost guides. On 1 February 2018 CIA launched two new signposting guides

UK CIA Sustainable Health Metrics Indicators Tool with Relevant Good Practice; and
CIA Guidelines for Developing and Implementing Drug and Alcohol Policies.

The first, an update of the successful CIA Health Metrics Tool launched in 2012, includes a collection of leading health good practices kindly supplied by our members whom have received acclaim or recognition through national awards or CIA’s initiative of Responsible Care verification visits. The intention is that these relevant good practices, listed according to the Tool’s Health Systems categories, may assist members as suggestions for consideration within their own operations as appropriate. Users of this proactive Tool are able to check and score their health programmes against a number of elements, thus enabling them to identify areas for improvement. Following the introduction of interventions and lapse of a suitable time period for these to take effect, the Tool can be run again to check whether the changes have resulted in the desired beneficial health outcomes.

The second signposting guide on drug and alcohol policies considers the legal basis for these; contains key tips; aspects for consideration and helpful case studies for managing these pressing issues that can have an impact on our workplaces. Importantly the emphasis is very much on helping and supporting individuals through health and wellbeing leadership from the top down allowing confidential self referral as needed.

For ease of use both these guides are built around the familiar Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) ‘Plan-Do Check-Act’ model as given in HSG 65.

2. Each year CIA holds a conference focusing on health & wellbeing leadership (this is open to everyone – check out our website events section in October/November for details: www. cia.org.uk/Training-and-events/Training courses).

3. In 2013 CIA introduced an Annual Award for Health &Wellbeing Leadership to showcase the excellent performance of a company. This is one of a number of CIA Annual Awards. Past winners of the CIA Health & Wellbeing Leadership Award are SABIC, Novartis, Huntsman Pigments & Additives, Innospec and DSM Nutritional Products. Entry is open to the whole of the UK Chemical Manufacturing Industry and companies that provide services to the chemical industry as appropriate for each particular award. Further details can be found at: www.ciaawards.co.uk.

4. CIA actively contributes to UK and EU debates on workplace health legislation and policy discussions, working closely with stakeholders including the Health and Safety Executive helping them to deliver their ‘Help Great Britain Work Well Strategy’. CIA is a member of the European Chemical Employers Group (ECEG) and works with the European trade union industriAll Europe through the European Commission’s Sectoral Social Dialogue for the chemical industry ‘The Social Partners of the European Chemical, Pharmaceutical, Rubber and Plastics’ to promote health awareness and protection of employees working with chemicals.

Our opinions and actions

Workplace health, together with safety, applies to all manufacturing sectors and downstream users whether this is through sectoral legislation specifically highlighting the protection of the workforce or more general issues such as occupational health and wellbeing. CIA works with its member companies and trade unions to ensure that legislation relating to occupational health is correctly implemented to provide effective protection of workers from adverse health effects.

Healthy workforces are an integral part to the success of any business. The health protection of workers from hazardous substances and other causes in the workplace is intrinsically linked with the successful functioning of the business itself. For employees this not only brings a better working environment but also provides opportunities for participation in employer’s occupational health programmes. For a business, benefits include improvements in employee motivation, reduced costs and risks (such as from lower sickness absence), increasing business continuity and improved reputation.

To achieve this we believe everyone working on a site has a role to play – in fact we go as far as stating that Health & Wellbeing leadership applies to absolutely everyone!