Hi, We're going to be going through a period of transformational change following a new vision and strategy and are working on the risk register to address any safety, health or welfare concerns that may arise whilst going through this. The usual suspects have been discussed such as confusion around the new structure whilst moving in to it, which could leave gaps where it is assumed someone else is monitoring them. Can anyone add anything else? I have to be honest, I'm struggling with this one!

The main issue is stress. Are the changes effecting peoples vision of their security of employment, who their managers are, are their workloads or responsibilities increasing?

"Change" is one of the HSE Management standards for work related stress, it might be worth your while looking into this a bit further on their website.

HSE published a guidance note on organisational change a long time ago (link below). I don't know if you are working in major hazards, but I would suggest the principles are the same. Resources required to manage the transition seems to be a big issue for companies. Also, there is this view that the change will be successful, so that uncertainty and associated risks are not considered. There should always be a Plan B in case of failure, which may be to revert to the original arrangements (if that is possible) or another set of arrangements, which may at least provide a holding position. http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/chis7.pdf

We are going through a profound change at the moment, and I agree with the comments about the strategic risks, stress is a big one. The other and associated (but not identical) strategic risk is disengagement; people who are under actual or perceived threat are not so likely to comply as they might once have been. The other thing that I'm coming across, which we haven't addressed very well, is that people who are key to certain safety processes are leaving, and the plans to replace them are still to take effect. So we need people to check fire alarms, do water hygiene monitoring, check vehicles and so on. In 750 premises. Some of these people have already gone, and shortly we will hit a crisis where many of them will have gone, and the replacement processes and people are still in the planning stage. Lots of risks, John