Can HR and H&S work together to bring about sustainable rehabilitation?

Human Resources (HR) practitioners and Occupational Safety and Health (H&S) practitioners work in a variety of ways, in a team together (as in UK Local Authorities often under an HR Manager), in separate silos such as large manufacturing organisations, or HR and/or H&S are outsourced. Any spatial separation is compounded by the fact that HR and H&S have different professional bodies and different systems of accreditation each with their own standards.
This paper looks at the outputs from a 2016 survey of the perceptions that H&S professionals have of their HR colleagues in areas such as risk management, H&S training received and leadership on wellbeing ill health initiatives. The feedback identified concerns with regards competence and trust, concerning when in many areas HR managers often ‘control’ H&S advice. The paper goes on to identify occasions where there has been both positive collaboration and conversely a lack of collaboration between professionals. The paper goes on to suggest ways of closer working and initiatives both in the workplace and academia with programmes having credits in both disciplines.