A case study: wellbeing at a drug manufacturer

The pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca started a wellbeing programme covering the balance between home and work, treatment and rehabilitation, and health promotion. In the UK, absence became 31 percent lower than the national average, saving an estimated £5 million a year. In the first six months the number of ergonomic health and safety cases per million hours worked fell by 53 percent, and work-related stress cases also went down.

A warning from history: Bhopal

In December 1984 a large quantity of a toxic gas, methyl isocyanate, leaked from a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, and drifted over the city. More than half a million people were exposed. Thousands died within days, and many more died of related illness in the years that followed. The company later paid $470 million in compensation. In 2010 an Indian court convicted seven former employees of causing death by negligence. Each received two years in prison and a fine of 100,000 rupees.

A rupee fine of that size can look small. But wages in India are much lower than in many countries, and a worker could earn less than 150 rupees a day, so the fine was worth about two years of such a salary. The lesson is the same everywhere: a failure to manage a hazard can cost lives and lead to criminal convictions of managers.

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