Senior management leadership and buy-in leads to better occupational safety outcomes, research confirms

The research has been conducted for the Lloyd’s Register Foundation Global Safety Evidence Centre, in partnership with the International Organisation for Standardization’s Technical Committee on occupational health and safety management (ISO/TC 283). The work emphasises the critical role senior management have in improving safety outcomes by visibly leading and embedding safety culture in their organisations from the top down. 

Key findings of The role of leadership and governance in occupational safety and health (OSH) report, published today, include: 

• Senior management’s role in setting clear policies, demonstrating visible leadership, keeping oversight of the system, and fostering a positive safety culture has a positive impact on OSH outcomes.
• Longer leadership tenures contribute to organisational stability and therefore better OSH outcomes, as do considered, prevention-focused attitudes towards safety. In contrast, rapid turnover in leadership and traits like over-confidence or over-focus on short-term goals lead to the opposite.
• Further research is needed to address gaps in definitions of senior management across organisations and OSH standards, and to evaluate the effectiveness of targeted leadership training programmes.

However, the findings also suggest financial incentives for OSH performance should be carefully considered. While these can encourage a stronger focus on safety, financial incentives can also sometimes result in unintended and counterproductive behaviours such as underreporting.

This research will inform the development of a proposed ISO OSH standard focused on leadership and governance. ISO standards help ensure quality, safety and efficiency across products, processes and practices. A new standard developed with a strong understanding of how key leadership roles, competencies and contextual factors affect safety and health will jointly support OSH practitioners and their organisation’s leaders to improve safety practices and outcomes.  

The research team assessed the available evidence globally on the interaction between leadership and governance and OSH outcomes, addressing a known gap in knowledge around roles, responsibilities and impact. The resulting report represents a summary of all existing research findings globally on the topic, and establishes a strong foundation in understanding these links. However, further robust studies are needed to strengthen the evidence base and give senior leaders greater confidence in doing the right thing. 

Nancy Hey, Director of Evidence and Insight at Lloyd’s Register Foundation, said: “Senior managers can positively impact occupational safety and health outcomes in their organisations by providing strategic direction, demonstrating visible leadership and engagement, maintaining systematic oversight, and fostering a positive safety culture. On the other hand, organisations must give active attention to the heightened safety risk present when CEOs change., Financial incentives also need to be used with care.

“Collating and creating research that can directly inform standards in this way is an integral part of the work of the Global Safety Evidence Centre; it is important that standard setters such as the ISO are able to inform what is researched next so it is as useful as possible.”

Leanie du Toit, Chair of ISO TC 283, said: “Leadership is not a supporting element of occupational health and safety; it is a decisive one. The evidence clearly shows that when senior leaders visibly shape, prioritise and embed a strong safety culture, organisations see measurable improvements in both the frequency and severity of workplace injuries. These insights will directly inform the development of new ISO guidance on governance and leadership, ensuring that organisations have the structures, behaviours and expectations needed to strengthen prevention, empower workers, and build safer, more resilient workplaces.”

Malcolm Staves, Global Vice President of Health and Safety at L’Oréal, added: “At L’Oréal, we have built a safety system over more than a decade that achieves consistently low accident and ill-health rates globally, with clear, purposeful leadership as its foundation. Engaging with employees and encouraging upward feedback are important, but most fundamental to our leaders’ role in driving safety performance is their commitment to the core system of keeping people healthy and safe. We put a high priority on strong, visible felt safety leadership at L’Oréal because we believe it is the engine of excellence and high performance. It’s no surprise to see that belief supported by the evidence in this report by the Global Safety Evidence Centre.”