We believe that corporate leaders and decision-makers can and should make more direct links between health and safety programs and human capital management."
Aaron Uddin
Partner, ERM
Everyone benefits: connecting health, safety & human capital
Photo credit: The SustainAbility Institute by ERM
While keeping people safe and preventing injury and illness in the workplace remains important, momentum is building towards recognizing the whole person, including wellness outside of work.
As a result, the health and safety function is evolving to respond to shifting stakeholder expectations around what comprises health and safety, as illustrated in the latest ERM Global Health and Safety Survey. Evolution also continues to take place in the realm of human capital. Investors and other stakeholders are scrutinizing human capital management and performance trends and calling for new human capital disclosures.
Historic discussion on human capital management inside companies has most often happened in the context of board level governance and oversight, with boards tending to consider human capital management via a human resources lens, and sometimes an environmental, social and governance (ESG) lens, but rarely delving into the health and safety arena. There is significant potential benefit to more deeply integrating health and safety learnings and expertise into human capital thinking. This report explores three areas where companies have opportunities to do this:
- Company Culture: Developing a culture of care reflects human capital management best practice. It begins with ensuring health, safety, and well-being.
- Governance: Creating cross-functional teams that include health and safety professionals enhances human capital management, increases business resilience, and improves ESG performance.
- Transparency & Disclosure: Investor, customer, employee, and community demands for ESG performance data increasingly include human capital management information, aspects of which exist within the health and safety function.
The report concludes by recapping how greater collaboration between different business functions, including health and safety, can result in a higher performing organization due to the full appreciation, application and management of its human capital.