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The British Safety Council (BSC) announced the winners of its International Safety Awards (ISAs) 2024 in June. FMJ reports on the awards criteria and how it underscores the BSC’s ‘Health, Safety, and Wellbeing Manifesto’
The International Safety Awards recognise an organisation’s commitment to excellent standards of health, safety and wellbeing management at a specific site or business unit.
The awards, which are open to all organisations, large or small were launched in 1968 to provide companies, teams and individuals with the chance to gain recognition for their hard work and achievements in protecting and enhancing the health, safety and wellbeing of their organisations’ workers.
This year, 1148 organisations of all sizes and sectors won British Safety Council’s ISA awards. They came from as far as Africa, Asia, India, mainland Europe and the Middle East. Two hundred and seventy-eight applicants achieved a distinction, 463 achieved a merit and 407 achieved a pass.
JUDGING CRITERIA
To qualify for recognition, organisations answer a series of online questions about their approach to protecting and enhancing the health, safety and wellbeing of their workers and others who could be affected by their work activities, such as contractors.
Among the key criteria that companies are encouraged to use as part of their submission is how they have identified the most significant issues at the site in relation to occupational health hazards, occupational safety hazards, and wellbeing concerns. Additionally, they are also asked to outline the control measures they have put in place to control these risks. This may include their key health, safety and wellbeing policies and procedures and how they communicate these policies and procedures effectively to their workforce.
The award submissions are site specific – with the onus on applicants to convince the adjudicators that their particular site/business unit deserves an award based on its commitment to health, safety and wellbeing management. Each submission is judged independently by a number of senior health, safety and wellbeing professionals across a variety of organisations.
AWARD CATEGORIES
One of the main categories of awards is the Sector Award: this award recognises ‘best in class’ submissions by industry sector.
Sector award categories are:
- Construction and property activities
- Consultancy and advisory
- Education
- Financial, IT, legal, scientific and technical services, media
- Health and social care
- Leisure, sports clubs, hospitality and catering
- Local government, defence and public services
- Manufacturing
- Not for profit
- Oil, gas, mining and quarrying
- Onshore major hazard
- Power and utilities
- Transportation, distribution and storage
- Wholesale and retail services
Alongside this category is the Best in Country Award. All International Safety Award applicants are entered into this category, provided there is a significant number of applications from the same country, and the highest scoring and best overall application therefore allows the winner to benchmark themselves against other leaders in their territory.
As the parameters of H&S have shifted since the awards were launched, so too have the breadth of awards. Recent additions include the CEO Award, Health, Safety and Wellbeing Ambassador of the Year, Team of the Year, The James Tye Award, Wellbeing Initiative Award, Health and Safety Transformation Award, and the Seize the Opportunity Award.
This range of awards recognises individuals – such as the CEO Award and the Health, Safety and Wellbeing Ambassador of the Year Award – and teams whose outstanding achievements resulted in a significant improvement to health, safety or wellbeing from a collaboration of stakeholders and gives the opportunity to include members of the organisation, suppliers, subcontractors and/or the wider community.
The James Tye Award recognises an organisation or team of individuals who have developed and run a campaign that made a significant impact on health, safety or wellbeing in the workplace. The award is named in honour of the British Safety Council’s founder, James Tye, who campaigned tirelessly to improve the health, safety and welfare of people at work from the organisation’s foundation in 1957 until his death in 1996.
Meanwhile, the Seize the Opportunity Award rewards organisations that have gone the extra mile to seize health, safety or wellbeing opportunities resulting from a crisis.
This year’s ceremony also incorporated the 7th Mates in Mind Impact Awards, which are given by British Safety Council’s sister charity, Mates in Mind, to companies seeking to improve mental health at work, especially in the construction sector.
