About the EHS Experts
Tim Marsh and Tony Roscoe joined us for an interview on the current state of workplaces when it comes to preparing for life after COVID-19 and the learnings they have developed for their clients. Tim and Tony both operate in the health and safety consulting spheres and have extensive combined experience working in practical and academic health and safety.
In addition to this article, Tim and Tony also offer other great insights on the HSE Network which is why they are part of our dedicated team of expert health and safety content partners.
The world of work has changed due to the Coronavirus pandemic, and the changes that have happened are looking more and more permanent as time goes on. Given the devastation that Coronavirus has caused, drawing some learnings from it is essential, and from a health and safety perspective, there are plenty.
In May we caught up with Tim Marsh and Tony Roscoe from Anker and Marsh. With some looking to get their employees back in the workplace, we discussed the learnings that can be taken and applied and how they could be brought in.
We asked Tim and Tony What learnings could be drawn from Coronavirus:
Tony’s answer
“We’ve got to get to a whole new different set of behaviours. But, you know, I agree that there’s some really positive stuff that’s going to come out of this. And I think, you know, we’ve got to keep looking forward, we’ve got to look at the positive, and we’ve got to look, for me, the biggest one as Tim mentioned and I mentioned before is the whole empowerment piece.
This is such a great opportunity to get people involved, to really get them, empower them in redesigning their workplace solutions to problems that really annoy them. And we know that that has an effect on just not on safety, it affects the bottom line, and it also affects mental health. So it has an impact throughout the organization.”
Tim’s answer
“In terms of positives coming out of this, I think there could be huge positives coming out; well, so long as the planet doesn’t actually completely implode. But the first one is there are things like good habits, like washing hands.
I’ve seen some very sensible, so many scientists say we will save more lives over the next 10 years from things like diphtheria, typhus, all those are illnesses that kill more than COVID… every year kill more than COVID has killed worldwide already. And then, we’ll see a massive reduction in that as we all develop good habits. That Tony had said, you know, empowerment, risk awareness, risk management, that’s got to enhance.”
How can we implement the learnings from COVID-19?
What Tony and Tim touched on is crucial. Getting the right empowerment for workers will help them implement safe methods of working that will work for them in their unique circumstances. This can be done through positive reinforcement and good transformational leadership for empowerment.
The spread of coronavirus has had a huge impact on a lot of different industries. The full video from Tim Marsh and Tony Roscoe looks at the other way’s employers have looked to improve the safety of their workplaces ready for new operations.
