Introduction to Health and Safety at Work

4.10 
External infl uences
The role of external organizations is set out in Chapter 1. 
Here the infl uence they can have is briefl y discussed, 
including societal expectations, legislation and enforce-
ment, insurance companies, trade unions, economics, 
commercial stakeholders.
4.10.1 Societal 
expectations
Societal expectations are not static and tend to rise over 
time, particularly in a wealthy nation like the UK. For 
example, the standards of safety accepted in a motor car 
fi fty years ago would be considered to be totally inad-
equate at the beginning of the 21st century. We expect 
safe, quiet, comfortable cars that do not break down 
and retain their appearance for many thousands of miles. 

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Introduction to Health and Safety at Work
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Industry should strive to deliver these same high stand-
ards for the health and safety of employees or service 
providers. The question is whether societal expectations 
are as great an infl uence on workplace safety standards 
as they are on product safety standards. Society can 
infl uence standards through:
➤
people only working for good employers. This is 
effective in times of low unemployment
➤
national and local news media highlighting good and 
bad employment practices
➤
schools teaching good standards of health and safety
➤
the purchase of fashionable and desirable safety 
equipment, like trendy crash helmets on mountain 
bikes
➤
only buying products from responsible companies. 
The diffi culty of defi ning what is responsible has 
been partly overcome through ethical investment 
criteria but this is possibly not widely enough under-
stood to be a major infl uence
➤
watching TV and other programmes which improve 
safety knowledge and encourage safe behaviour 
from an early age. It will be interesting to see if ‘Bob 
the Builder’ and all the books, videos and toys pro-
duced to enhance sales will have a positive effect on 
future building and DIY health and safety standards.