Verian (formerly Kantar Public) has partnered with our client, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), to improve work place practices since 2017.
Context
HSE has a remit to reduce workplace fatalities, injuries and ill health. Central to HSE’s strategic approach has been the intention to promote good practice not just through regulation and intervention, but by encouraging and supporting broader ownership of health and safety among those with a stake in it.
Approach
Our qualitative practice conducted a large multi-phase study with construction businesses (with less than 15 employees) and clients (domestic and small commercial) to understand what drives perceptions, attitudes and behaviours towards health and safety practices on site.
- Initially, our approach involved a literature review and workshops with HSE inspectors to improve our understanding of the construction sector overall, project lifecycles and known health and safety hazards.
- Next, 67 interviews with construction businesses and clients, followed by five ethnographic case studies on construction sites to understand the differences between reported and observed attitudes and behaviours on site.
- The research identified key support needs and behavioural levers to address them, and generated six attitudinal typologies, with accompanying pen portraits which were brought to life in a short film.
The study culminated in a co-design phase.
- Two workshops with 6 construction businesses and 3 HSE staff in each were held, to address some of the challenges which emerged from the research.
- Specifically, the sessions focused on how to grow the ownership of health and safety among smaller construction businesses.
- The sessions involved attendees working together to co-create solutions which would make it easier for workers to engage with health and safety regulations and grow individual ownership of them.
Impact
The sessions produced six key principles which have informed HSE’s partnership work with the construction sector.