A new global survey has found that most safety leaders plan to boost spending on workplace safety over the next two years, as incidents continue to occur at high levels.
Commissioned by connected safety technology provider Blackline Safety and conducted by research firm NewtonX, the study surveyed 200 senior safety and operations professionals from companies with more than 500 employees worldwide.
The findings are compiled in the Keeping People Safe: Global Data on the State of Workplace Safety report, which states that 95 per cent of safety leaders expect to maintain or increase their safety budgets in the next two years. At the same time, 97 per cent believe workplace safety is essential to reliable productivity.
Despite that recognition, the report highlights a gap between safety protocols and how they are applied in practice. Almost two-thirds of respondents (64 per cent) said there is a disconnect between safety rules and real-world behaviour on worksites.
“It’s clear from the survey that a majority of experts support a change in safety culture across industries,” Blackline Safety chief product and marketing officer Christine Gillies said.
“As a result, we’ll see safety increasingly becoming a holistic, enterprise-wide operating system instead of a compliance function.”
Gillies said the gap can stem from a disconnect between people, processes and technology, as well as safety procedures being developed without a clear understanding of day-to-day site conditions.
“Three pillars make up a strong safety culture – training and communication, tools and technology, and data and reporting,” she said. “Most organisations have all three, yet few have them working together, which means gaps persist even when investment increases.”
Survey respondents identified worker training (46 per cent) as the top budget priority, followed by workforce engagement (41 per cent), infrastructure improvements to reduce risk (34 per cent), new technology (30 per cent) and internal advocacy for safety (29 per cent).
The findings also show most organisations continue to set zero-incident safety targets, though 76 per cent of leaders consider those goals unrealistic.
While 73 per cent of organisations review incident and near-miss reports, only 33.5 per cent are using predictive analytics to forecast risk and prevent similar events in the future.
Finally, 65 per cent of leaders expect artificial intelligence (AI) risk prediction tools to become increasingly key.
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