Make Health Your Business
"Nine times out of ten, when people's performance falls off it's because of health problems": that's the premise of this training video made for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).
The title of this video is not, as it might at first appear, a call-out to aspiring capitalists looking to make a quick buck from the health industry. Instead it was made to support the Health and Safety Executive's 'Good Health is Good Business' campaign. It features Sir John Harvey-Jones, then a well-known businessman and television presenter who, in the BBC series Troubleshooter (tx 1990), gave ailing companies the benefit of his advice to help them turn around their prospects.
There's a stark opening statistic: "Every year nearly two and a quarter million people, that's one in every 11 (working people) will suffer from an illness caused by, or made worse, as a direct result of their work." This is resoundingly followed up with "Worse still, it needn't happen. Managers have it within their power to do something about it." The video goes on to illustrate how occupational health risks have been managed in a number of different companies and emphasises that measures needed to control health risks can often be simple and inexpensive.
This video was filmed in a wide range of businesses, mostly in the north west of England and London, including Maurice Nield & Sons, Manchester; Mediscreen, Royal Oldham Hospital; Dale Joinery, Rochdale; The Beacon Press, Uckfield; Bestway Tyres, Wigan; Worthington's Hair and Beauty, London; and the Jubilee Line Extension Project.
The tone of the well-intentioned narration may strike contemporary ears as paternalistic -particularly its references to employees as "your people." Harvey-Jones' closing line sums up the film's approach - and betrays a striking assumption about managers: "If you look after your people there's a sporting chance they'll look after you... if you're not looking after your people... you're not much of a man either."
Made to support the Health and Safety Executive's 'Good Health is Good Business' campaign. Features Sir John Harvey-Jones and shows how occupational health risks have been managed in a number of different companies and in a range of industries. Describes how workplace health risks can be identified and controlled by following a simple four-stage approach: check the workplace; decide what to do; take action; monitor the situation. Makes the point that the measures needed to control health risks can often be simple and inexpensive.
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Health & Safety at Work
Work can be a matter of life and death. Explore how video helped spread the gospel of ‘Elf’n’Safety’ and improved Britain’s workplaces
As employers and government grew gradually but increasingly conscious of responsibilities towards the wellbeing of staff at work, so grew the role of film in the workplace. The moving image, with its emotional power and its ability to stick in the memory (especially when resorting to graphic imagery), was well placed to help get key health and safety messaging across both to employees, exhorted to follow safe practices, and to employers and managers encouraged to make conditions as safe as possible (or at least, as safe as the law requires of them).
And when things go wrong, the filmmaker may be there to help pick up the pieces, documenting or dramatising the consequences. In the era of videotape cameras and videotape viewing, late in the 20th century, the role of film in ‘Elf’n’Safety’ only grew bigger. This collection explores how it did it
16 videos in this collection
1
2
Disability Discrimination Act: Act Now
3
Handle with Care
4
First Aid in the Laboratory: Chemical Spillages
5
Make Health Your Business
6
Health and Safety at Work for Enfield
7
Safety's No Accident
8
Illegal Manriding
9
The Self Rescuer
10
Contraband Kills
11
Fighting the Odds
12
Fire Service Demonstrate House Fire
13
Pointers To Good Safety Management: Caring Occupations
14
Pointers To Good Safety Management: Equestrian Work
15
Pointers To Good Safety Management: In a Garage
16