Health and Safety Executive Management Standards: associations with operational effectiveness in policing

The United Kingdom (UK) Health and Safety Executive's Management Standards encompass a set of aspirational quality standards and a risk management methodology pertaining to psychosocial working conditions. Two decades since their introduction, implementation of the Management Standards or equivalent approaches remains far from universal across UK organizations. This may be due, in part, to a paucity of evidence concerning their operational effectiveness benefits.

This study aimed to generate evidence on the business benefits of the Management Standards by examining associations between achievement of the good practice quality standards and indices of operational effectiveness.

Police custody sergeants (N = 1493) completed the Management Standards Indicator Tool that assesses the extent to which the quality standards are met, plus measures of operational effectiveness (job performance, attendance behaviours, intention to leave). Logistic regression was used to examine associations between achievement of the quality standards and operational effectiveness.

The proportion of respondents reporting fulfilment of the quality standards in their workplace ranged from 3% (change) to 65% (role). Achievement of the quality standards was variously associated with elevated odds for the concurrent presence of desirable states of operational effectiveness.

These findings point to the operational effectiveness benefits of a preventative approach to the management of workplace psychosocial risk and may encourage organizations to adopt the Management Standards or an equivalent approach to fulfil their legal duty in respect to psychosocial risk management.