Safety culture the new power move for business leaders, says IOSH
Summary
IOSH has published a white paper, Safety culture comes of age: empowering people, strengthening resilience, elevating performance, which positions safety as a strategic business advantage rather than just a compliance task. It introduces the Business Assurance Certification (BAC) and an accompanying Business Assurance Tool for realistic self-assessment. The BAC framework is built on three pillars: governance & leadership, systems & processes, and people & culture. Organisations can pursue independent certification from bronze to platinum to demonstrate maturity.
Trials with 120 organisations found most are at early stages of safety-culture maturity, but the BAC framework immediately stimulated cross-functional conversations and fresh investment in people. IOSH argues that embedding safety and wellbeing into corporate strategy can boost resilience, innovation and ESG credentials, while delivering tangible benefits such as reduced incidents and lower turnover.
Key Points
- IOSH reframes safety culture as a strategic asset that drives performance and resilience.
- The Business Assurance Certification (BAC) offers a structured maturity model and independent certification (bronze to platinum).
- The BAC rests on three pillars: governance & leadership; systems & processes; people & culture.
- A Business Assurance Tool enables realistic self-assessment to guide improvement.
- Global trials with 120 organisations showed the framework sparks cross-functional dialogue and renewed investment in people.
- Expected benefits include stronger investor confidence, better supply-chain credibility, improved employee engagement and potential financial returns (fewer incidents, lower insurance and turnover).
- The BAC is available worldwide; further information at iosh.com/business.
Why should I read this?
Quick and blunt: if you run or influence a business, this is not just safety-speak — it’s a playbook to make safety part of your strategy, win trust (and investment), and cut costs downstream. The BAC gives you a framework and a certification to prove it — handy if you want to stop safety being a back-office afterthought.
Source
Source: https://hrnews.co.uk/safety-culture-the-new-power-move-for-business-leaders-says-iosh/
