How confidential reporting can improve port safety through cross-industry health and safety learning, and why it's different from whistleblowing.

This article first appeared in Port Strategy magazine October 2020.

Port workers

Different operational environments share similar challenges, and workforce safety is one of these. Operational staff on the frontline of your port business – quayside, working cargo plant, dealing with ro-ro ferry movements – are dealing with day-to-day issues not unlike those facing workers in the railway industry, for example.

Although ports and the railway work with different modes of transport, both move goods and passengers from A to B, and some ports also handle marine, leisure and fishing facilities.  Many operate 24/7, increasing the possibility of health and safety issues. Frontline staff are often best placed to see hazards first-hand.  

What is the nature of hazards and risks in port operations?

According to Port Skills & Safety (PSS) – Britain’s professional port health and safety membership organisation – slips, trips and falls account for the largest percentage of safety incidents that result in people being off work for at least one day (Lost Time Injury or LTI). Perhaps unsurprisingly, this is also a frequent workforce safety issue impacting railway operations. 

Other risks shared by the port and railway sectors include: driving and operating vehicles and machinery, as well as being around these, with the risk of being trapped, crushed or run over; manual handling and the risk of associated muscular injuries; falling or moving objects, such as cargo being transferred from sea to land side; working at height and the associated risk of falling.

While there are differences between different transport and logistics operations, there is plenty of health and safety learning to be shared. One of the differences between ports and the railway is that the railway has a well-established confidential reporting service. CIRAS confidential safety hotline has been fully embedded in railway operations for many years – from the supply chain, train and freight operating companies to infrastructure managers – and is increasingly used in the bus and tram sector, but is still relatively new to ports.  

Confidential reporting in the rail sector helps to reduce operational risks. Frontline staff of CIRAS member companies can use it to speak out about health, safety and wellbeing issues without colleagues or managers linking the concern to them personally. This encourages employees to report proactively and means the company can investigate and act on the intelligence. In 2019-2020, 85 per cent of CIRAS reports led to at least one action, so may have uncovered new information for the companies that received them. 

What is different about confidential reporting? 

With the best will in the world and even with even with a top-performing safety culture, you will not hear about all concerns through internal reporting channels. Your operational staff are the eyes and ears of your company, seeing what really happens day to day. But not everyone is comfortable reporting safety issues internally. Research released by Nottingham Business School at Nottingham Trent University in May this year, in conjunction with the CIPD, demonstrates this. It shows that frontline operational staff feel less able or confident to raise concerns than office-based staff, with more barriers and fewer channels.  

Confidential reporting can help to address this because it is inclusive. It offers anonymity that can remove anxiety around speaking up – so nobody needs to feel excluded. We know from our own 2019-20 data that a fifth of the people who contacted CIRAS directly, without first using internal channels, did so because of fear of retribution. Meanwhile, 15 per cent cited culture and for a quarter there was no other option because their concerns were about a company other than their employer. 

Confidential reporting is different from whistleblowing. Whistleblowing presumes wrongdoing and exposes illegal, unethical or otherwise wrong actions. In contrast, confidential reporting focuses on safety improvement: revealing hazards that managers have not noticed; highlighting procedures or rules that have good intentions but are not working in practice and could cause unsafe actions; alerting companies to fatigue and other personal wellbeing issues that could affect safety performance; problems with equipment, and so on. The big difference for staff is that those who report confidentially have their identity protected, guaranteed. Although there are legal protections for whistleblowers, high-profile examples of people losing jobs and reputation as a result of speaking up can put off many. 

Providing a blame-free confidential reporting channel for frontline concerns could raise morale, as people know that no matter what the circumstances are, there will always be someone who will genuinely listen and take an interest in what they have to say. And 360-degree feedback means they have a chance to raise follow-up questions and comments about the response they receive.

It has never been more apparent that prevention is better than cure. The best way to minimise the loss associated with health and safety incidents – whether a minor slip that leads to a short time off work, or a RIDDOR with more serious implications – is to prevent them in the first place. Increasingly, information and data are the bedrock of risk management and business decisions. Confidential reporting provides an additional source of safety intelligence that has the potential to identify risks that might otherwise be missed and so predict and prevent incidents, revealing cross-sector and industry-wide issues and learning. 

‘We are always looking to improve health and safety in ports and that means making it as easy as possible for everyone in the industry to be proactive safety champions,’ says Richard Steele, chief executive of PSS.  

‘UK ports work hard to deliver employee health and safety inclusion and engagement. Just some of the actions that you will see in ports include visible felt leadership, employee representative forums, safety conversations, spot-it schemes and workforce project groups. Mechanisms such as confidential reporting can complement and support ports’ successes in building ever more effective health and safety cultures.’ 

Now is the time for companies to look beyond traditional practices and reach out across sectors, working together to build safer workplaces. 

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