Articles
Perspectives on safety culture, leadership and the evolving HSEQ landscape of the Middle East.
Contractor Safety at Scale: Why Maturity Matters More Than Compliance
In major projects and complex organisations, contractors are often the front line of delivery — yet contractor safety management is still too often treated as a compliance exercise. Compliance tells us whether certain requirements exist; it does not necessarily tell us how mature an organisation is in managing contractor risk.
The Missing Layer in Safety Culture: Understanding How People Think Before They Act
For decades, organisations have invested heavily in safety management systems, training, procedures, behavioural observation programmes and safety culture surveys. Yet a persistent question remains: why can two experienced, competent and well-trained people make very different decisions about risk?
UV Safety Month: Protecting Workers Under Qatar's Sun
July marks UV Safety Month—an important opportunity to raise awareness of a risk that is often present but rarely visible. In Qatar and across the Middle East, sunlight is a significant occupational consideration for anyone who works outdoors.
World Day for Safety and Health at Work
Every year on April 28, the world marks the World Day for Safety and Health at Work, a global campaign led by the International Labour Organization (ILO) to promote the prevention of occupational accidents and diseases. The day is more than a calendar event: it is a reminder that safe and healthy work is a fundamental expectation of responsible business.
Preventing Workplace Brain Injuries: Why Head Protection Is Not Enough
March is Brain Injury Awareness Month, making it a timely opportunity for employers across Qatar and the GCC to revisit one of the most serious but often underestimated workplace risks: traumatic brain injuries (TBIs). Brain injuries can result from falls from height, vehicle accidents, and struck-by incidents, and while helmets and hard hats remain essential, they are not enough on their own.
Women in Safety: How Diverse HSE Leadership Improves Workplace Safety Outcomes
Women in Safety Week is an important opportunity to recognize the growing impact of women in health, safety, and environment roles. It is also a chance to highlight a broader truth: diverse safety leadership can improve workplace safety outcomes.
Tackling the Heat: Protecting Workers in the Era of Climate Change
The climate crisis is an ever-pressing issue that impacts all aspects of life, with a particular emphasis on the workplace. As global temperatures rise, occupational safety and health professionals increasingly confront the challenges posed by excessive heat.
Understanding Mental Health at Work Post-COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted mental health worldwide, particularly in the workplace.
Planet-Friendly PPE: Innovating for a Sustainable Future
Personal protective equipment (PPE) is indispensable for worker safety, particularly highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the environmental impact of PPE is a growing concern. Innovations in workwear aim to make protecting people more sustainable, addressing both safety and environmental needs.
Health and Safety Management in Schools: How to comply with OFSTED
The criticality of health and safety in OFSTED ratings cannot be overstated. Health and safety practices significantly influence the overall assessment of a school's performance.
Fostering Female Empowerment in the Health and Safety Sector: Overcoming Obstacles and Building a Safer Future.
In recent years, the health and safety industry has seen a gradual but significant shift towards inclusivity and diversity, with an increasing emphasis on empowering women in this traditionally male-dominated field.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and It's Business Significance
Implementing CSR practices is crucial for organizations to become socially responsible actors, contributing to sustainable development and other needs of society. By using ISO 26001, organizations can have guidance around developing and implementing CSR practices, while also exploring the principles of responsibility and accounting, stakeholder engagement and risk management, among other related fields.
The Qatar Construction Standard (QCS) and NEBOSH as a Minimum Competency Requirement for Safety Professionals in Qatar
In Qatar, possessing a NEBOSH certificate is often a requirement for health and safety jobs that come with significant responsibilities such as safety officers and managers. Employers require their employees to have the NEBOSH certificate because it provides them with confidence that their workers are well-equipped to manage health and safety risks in the workplace.
Key Steps to Developing a Culture of Care within Worker Accommodations
Worker accommodation standards in Qatar have been a considerable area of improvement over the last few years with much of this due to the high standards set as a result of the Worker Welfare Programs accelerated in view of the recent Football World Cup held within the country in November and December 2022.
Virtual Reality Training in Occupational Safety and Health
The Benefits of Virtual Reality and Immersive technology in occupational safety and health.
Green Means Go – Understanding the true Psychology of Safety Signs
Signage, whether related to health and safety or not, can ensure individuals unfamiliar to an area can immediately gain a better sense of their surroundings, a familiarity which can ultimately play a significant role in their overall health and wellbeing.
Behavior Based Safety – Can it Really Make a difference?
Behavioral-based safety aims to operate inside the worker by reaching the levers that determine how each of us acts. This article looks at the various ways behavioral based safety (BBS) programs can enhance and support current safety systems within a business.
The New Face of Occupational Health and Safety: Why Diversity, Inclusion and Human Rights is our Business!
Why bother? Why does it matter? Depending on location, chances are that anyone over forty grew up and started work in an environment where they never heard words like diversity and inclusion. Those words are in widespread use today and asking why can produce informative answers.
How effective are workplace flu prevention campaigns?
One of the corporate health campaigns we tend to often see within various organizations is the seasonal flu awareness campaigns. Influenza is usually mild and most people recover quickly. However, this contagious respiratory illness can have a significant impact on overall productivity.
Why the Traditional Approach to Manual Handling Training Does Not Work.
Manual handling is one of the most common causes of injury at the workplace and results in over a third of all workplace injuries. Injuries which traditionally we believe that basic employee awareness in the form of manual handling training should be more than enough to eliminate forever!
5 Key Sustainability Initiatives That Give us Great Hope for a Greener Future
As the debate about climate change continues, more creative examples, technologies and initiatives of how to fight it are popping up around the world. Over the last decade or so, we have watched many countries and communities significantly reduce their negative impact on the environment.
The Twilight Zone: Workplace Noise and its Effects on Employee Welfare
When we speak about noise or hearing conservation at the work place, as health and safety practitioners, our mindset nearly always takes us to what we have learnt about controlling high levels of noise. We start going back to our tried and tested ways of measuring levels of sounds that are above the 85 Decibel level.
How Great Organizations Manage Workplace Stress
Stress at the workplace is something that in various degrees effects everyone at work. In today's tough job market coupled with many economic uncertainties, work related stress is even more noticeable than it has ever been.
A Look Into the Future of Health and Safety
One of the common topics that come up when general health and safety discussions are taking place is the future of the profession and what health and safety practitioners will likely be doing in say twenty or even thirty years' from now.
Is there a business case for workplace wellness programs?
Workplace health and wellness in recent years seems to be a major area of focus within many health and safety teams. In some ways, this looks like a lengthy and impossible journey with many leaders often questioning how effective these efforts can be in the long run and its benefits when it comes to overall productivity.
Why GDPR Should Matter to Health and Safety Professionals
After what seems like a week of receiving emails asking you to update your policy settings, the letters GDPR probably seems like the last thing you want to hear about right now! The fact of the matter is, online security and information protection is only a small element of what the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is all about.
Sleep Deprivation and Its Effects on Worker Welfare
Sleep deprivation is a workplace health concern that is often ignored. It can decrease productivity at the workplace as well as being a frequent root cause for many safety incidents, accidents, and damages to property which result in a high financial impact every year.
How to Set up Effective Health and Safety Committees
Health and safety committees over the past few years have become very effective ways of gaining stronger employee participation and buy-in when it comes to safety, health and welfare matters affecting employees at the workplace.
Why it is a Good Idea to Have Your Own Company Hard Hat Colour Codes
Ever since they were first used in early major construction projects in the United States back in the 1930's, the hard hat has been an ever-present safety accessory on most heavy industry sites all over the world. Fast forward a few years and hard hat colour codes began to be used to determine the various levels and trades of employees and contractors.
Gauging Leadership Participation in Safety Initiatives
Many articles have been written regarding safety leadership and the importance of management participation in health and safety initiative at work. It had always been a strong area of interest to me and I would generally spend quite a lot of time reviewing much of these publications.
10 Considerations for Getting the Best Results from Your Health and Safety Orientations
Health, safety, and environmental orientations are essential to any organization's HSE management system as it is a process where new employees, contractors or visitors becoming familiar with the various expectations prior to starting work.
CMIOSH, CSP, CRSP, MIIRSM…..Choosing and Changing Between the Associations.
I am often asked about routes of conversion between the different chartered safety memberships worldwide. Health and safety recruiters are already well used to looking for professionals with safety affiliations as they recognize the chartered status as a best in class.
When a Permit to Work (PTW) Stops Working!
A permit-to-work system is a formal written system used to control certain types of work that are potentially hazardous. It is a document which specifies the work to be done and certain precautions that are required to be taken. Permits-to-work are an essential part of a safe system of work.
Build a Stronger Safety Culture by Hiring the Right Safety Officers
Often during my time in a number of safety roles, I had been tasked with recruiting safety officers to support the HSE team in the various activities within the department. The majority of the time this involved interviewing safety personnel to work for our contractors for the full duration of a given contract.
Thinking Strategically About Health and Safety: Setting your Key Performance Indicators (KPI's) to Ensure Greater Impact.
"If you can't measure it, you can't improve it" Commonly used as an opening sentence at a management training session, renowned thinker Peter Drucker is famously credited with the above saying referring to the notion that you cannot be successful unless success is defined and tracked.
OHSAS 18001 to ISO 45001 – The Transition to the World's First International Health and Safety Standard
Much has been said recently with many articles written regarding the world's first Internationally recognised Health and Safety standard, the ISO 45001. I decided to write this brief article explaining the benefits of having the standard and what additional work may be needed for companies to achieve the standard.
What is Zero Harm?
Very recently we introduced the ZERO Harm behavioral safety program in which a number of personnel have begun to undertake…..But what is ZERO Harm and what does it mean? Zero Harm is about caring for each other and demonstrating that care on a daily basis.
Safety Leadership
The concept of safety leadership is something that is very much talked about in various organizations worldwide. It is a term which we also hear quite often after a major work place accident takes place, fingers are pointed and one of the root causes of the event is often mentioned as Lack of Safety Leadership.