Paul Litchfield, Chief
Medical Officer and Director, Well-being, Inclusion, Safety & Health, BTGroup es uno de nuestros ponente clave para el II Congreso PRLInnovación.
A continuación una pequeña
entrevista que nos ha concedido Dr. Litchfield sobre la presentación que va a
realizar en nuestro evento.
Could
you briefly explain to us what your role is in BT, and how has it evolved since
you started?
I am Chief Medical Officer (CMO) and Director of
Wellbeing, Inclusion, Safety & Health. I have been CMO since the end of
2001. I initially joined the company as the Group Medical Adviser reporting to
the then CMO and was promoted to his job when he retired about 10 months after
I joined. The role initially focussed mainly on safety and the health element
has gradually increased in importance as we have controlled many of the safety
risks better. I added Wellbeing as a specific element about 6 years ago because
that was becoming the business priority. At the end of 2012 I was asked to also
take on responsibility for Inclusion (Diversity) in the company.
Could
you tell us why your role had to change?
Safety was a major issue when I joined the
company. We had a poor safety record but did not recognise it properly. When I
benchmarked our performance we rated about the same as the construction sector
(which was poor at the time). We secured Board support to improve safety and
reduced our accident rate by about 80% in 5 years. We adopted a behavioural
approach which we then adapted to address health issues. Initially we focussed
on work related ill health but it soon became clear that we needed to do something
about general health – especially the chronic diseases related to lifestyle
factors. We took an innovative approach using our own IT systems and developed
programmes jointly with our Trade Unions (TU) – it was very successful and
attracted a lot of external publicity in the UK. We then extended the health
agenda to mental health which had been neglected and over time switched the
debate from just dealing with sick people to improving wellbeing and enhancing
work performance. The adoption of Inclusion arose through a reorganisation and
the perceived synergies with Health & Wellbeing.
What
are the goals you have accomplished, and what are you most proud of achieving?
Could you explain to us why?
We have shifted our safety performance from
being all industry worst quartile to all industry best quartile over a number
of years. Deaths and serious injuries still (sadly) occur but far less
frequently than before. Health has become an integral part of our business and
the partnership with the TU has delivered wider benefits in terms of employee
relations. Mental health has been brought into the open and people are now
willing to talk about it and ask for help – our rehabilitation services get 92%
of people back to full working in their own jobs. The main thing though that I
am pleased about is that we have saved a large number of people at every level
in the company from losing their jobs because of health issues.
Well-being
has become a magic phrase for corporations. In your opinion what defines
well-being in terms of H&S? Does this differ from the business definition?
Wellbeing in a work environment is narrow than
in society as a whole. It constitutes a positive state of physical and mental
health together with engagement and work satisfaction.
BT is a global organization that has facilitated
you making contact with different H&S&W cultures. Are they very
different? And, from your point of view, what are the challenges for an OHS
department which must implement the same policies and procedures as those of
global companies?
Cultures are very different around the globe.
The common H&S standards arising from the Framework Directive help to
provide common ground in the EU but differences remain. The anglo- saxon risk
management principle of “ as far as reasonably practicable” does not work well
in more rules based societies. Getting managers to accept responsibility is an
issue in many cultures and that is particularly marked with work related health
issues. Different attitudes to personal privacy also drive different behaviours
– especially in the health area. In Asia the culture of trying not to cause
offence and telling people (especially visiting managers) what you think they
want to hear can compromise an open health & safety culture where you learn
from mistakes.
Paul Litchfield has been Chief Medical Officer
for BT Group plc since 2001 and previously held senior posts in occupational
medicine in both the public and private sectors. He is a Fellow of the Royal
College of Physicians of London and the Faculty of Occupational Medicine. In
2007 Paul was awarded the Order of the British Empire by the Queen for services
to Occupational Health and he is presently a member of the World Economic
Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Wellbeing & Mental Health. He recently carried
out an independent review of the British Government’s Work Capability
Assessment which affects over 2 million people and he was previously a
co-author of the independent review “Realising ambitions: Better employment
support for people with a mental health condition”.
During his career Paul has led organisations
through privatisation, expansion and downsizing. He has been party to multiple
reorganisations, a shift in focus to international business and a
transformation programme that has delivered year on year double digit cost
reductions in a major corporate enterprise. He has contributed to the European
Commission HIRES programme which addresses worker health in business
restructuring and he has implemented successful programmes in response to the
economic downturn. He is currently addressing the health issues arising from an
ageing workforce and the interplay between wellbeing and organisational
effectiveness programmes.
He has a long term interest in medical ethics
having been a member of the UK Faculty of Occupational Medicine’s Ethics
Committee from 1991-94 and then from 1997-2013 (from 2007 as Chair). He was a
contributor to 4 editions of the Faculty’s Guidance on Ethics in Occupational
Health and led the production of the most recent edition, published in 2012. He
is author of chapters on ethics in the most recent editions of Fitness for Work
and The ABC of Occupational & Environmental Medicine.
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