Professional Recovery 329

RECOVERYINSIDER
If we allow standards
to slip, it firstly puts
our workers in serious
danger, and often the
business at risk of
significant financial
and reputational
damage
movement of passengers.
Surly the health safety and wellbeing of your roadside staff
should be one of the top subjects on your boardroom agenda, it
should definitely feature before finance. If you remember it’s an
offence in the world of the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) to put
profit before safety and if you choose that path and head down
the dark side you can only expect a negative outcome and with
the HSE involved it can never be a good result.
Workplace safety is an integral responsibility of any organisation,
I mention this time and time over, it’s not just the staff you
directly employ that you hold the responsibility for, you also
have a responsibility, a duty of care for all and any subcontractor
network. If we allow standards to slip, it firstly puts our workers
in serious danger, and often the business at risk of significant
financial and reputational damage.
With all that at stake, there’s no way that anyone would
intentionally put profit first, is there? In the cold light of day this
often happens without anyone realising. Maybe it’s not as black
and white as we think it is ‘If we delay Johnny’s training for another
month we should stay on budget’ or ‘Johnny can do that recovery;
it will only take him an hour or so over his hours’. But the fact
is, revenue generating activities gain far more attention and top
more agendas in corporate boardrooms and SME’s management
meetings, with health and safety being easily put onto the back
burner.
This is where leadership comes into the play, not just with
managing your own staff, but also heading off that corporate
bullying, yes, I said it corporate bullying. If that’s not you or your
organisation then you have nothing to worry about but throughout
the network everyone is responsible for giving their element of
that workplace safety the attention it deserves.
I don’t want to do anyone any injustice or paint a dim picture
of the recovery industry as most organisations within the supply
chain, big or small understand the importance of safety in the
workplace. However, it’s the lure of financial reward, or the cost to
the network dominating the mindshare of some household brands
that encourage some poor decision making by those leaders.
In the sometimes fast and furious race to the bottom line when
safety can easily be side-lined.
The story has been played out again and again with companies
focusing on revenue, craftily incentivising with profit or payment
rates aligned KPIs, encouraging volume movements and operators
to take only the complicated and time driven work. In this KPI
driven climate, safety initiatives can easily drop off the radar,
increasing the safety risk exposure to any business, including a
subcontractor network.
Yes I am alluding to the carrying of passengers during these
COVID restrictions, forgetting any incentivisation that may or
may not be going on, call it what you like, ‘COVID payment for
masks’ who cares, it’s simply not right. In terms of the transport
guidelines, it is still a two metre rule for transport and to ignore
it makes your corporate responsibility for the driver and the
passengers morally wrong.
The onward travel options for the passengers are clear, they’re
listed with the SURVIVE (CV-19) Safe Systems of Work, but they
cost money, well sorry if you’ve already banked the money,
PROFESSIONAL RECOVERY MAGAZINE 11
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