Changing safety culture starts with the decisions people see their leaders make every day. For ISS UK & Ireland, that understanding became the foundation of a programme designed to help colleagues speak openly, challenge unsafe work and learn from experience.

The facilities management organisation, which employs around 28,000 people across the UK and Ireland, describes its journey in its submission to The SHE Show Inspiring Change Awards 2026. Its experience offers practical lessons for organisations seeking to turn safety commitments into everyday behaviour.

An internal culture survey published at the start of 2023 placed the business between reactive and calculative levels of safety maturity. ISS recognised that previous efforts had concentrated too heavily on frontline colleagues. Lasting change would require leaders and managers to examine their own behaviour, including how operational pressures influenced decisions about safety.

In January 2024, ISS introduced Safe Choice around three expectations: work safely, look out for each other, and learn from mistakes while celebrating success. These principles encouraged colleagues to challenge unsafe practices and helped the organisation focus on understanding why mistakes happened and what needed to change.

The approach subsequently informed a global programme, Creating SAFE Spaces Together. Initially launched during ISS’s global safety week in May 2025, the framework began its wider rollout later that year, with a stated reach of 30 countries and 320,000 employees.

Its four behaviours are Speak Openly, Act Safely, Focus on Learnings and Engage with Others. Each includes expectations for leaders, managers and everyone in the organisation. Employees are encouraged to raise concerns and stop work they consider unsafe. Managers are expected to listen and support them, while leaders must provide resources and put health, safety and wellbeing at the heart of business decisions.

To make those responsibilities visible, leadership teams created signed commitment walls. The UK and Ireland leadership commitments include taking concerns seriously, explaining what action follows employee feedback and discussing mistakes openly without fear or blame. Leaders also commit to completing at least five Safe Spaces Engagement Visits each year.

These visits create opportunities for conversations with colleagues about their working environment, good practice and barriers to safety. ISS also asked leaders to connect each meeting agenda item to a SAFE Spaces behaviour, bringing safety into discussions across business functions.

Managers received practical tools to support participation. Huddle cards provide prompts for small-group discussions lasting 20–30 minutes, covering subjects such as looking out for colleagues, learning from mistakes and mental health. Shorter “Espresso moments” use films and questions to encourage further reflection. Follow-up visits explore what people learned, what they would change and what prevents them from working safely. Managers are expected to act on suggestions and feed back to colleagues.

The programme also reached beyond employees. ISS brought together its top 20 high-risk supply chain partners to discuss commitments and share practice. Its safety reporting system allows contractors, visitors and clients to raise concerns directly.

ISS reports recording more than 30,000 “good catches” in 2025, identifying hazards, unsafe acts and conditions. Its submission also records a reduction in RIDDOR reports from 66 in 2024 to 45 in 2025. However, total recorded accidents increased over the same period, so the evidence shows a mixed picture rather than a reduction across every measure.

The supporting survey results provide another perspective. On the ISS Barclays account, the safety culture score increased from 62.8 in 2024 to 73.4 in 2026. The later survey still identified employee involvement and recognition of safe behaviour as areas for further attention. Those findings give the business specific issues to address as the programme develops.

The work remains ongoing. As at 1 September 2026, ISS reported that 60% of its target global leadership group had received the programme’s training, with manager and supervisor training planned for the final quarter of 2026.

For the wider SHE community, the useful lesson is the connection between leadership commitments and employees’ everyday experience. Asking people to speak up creates an obligation to listen, respond and explain what happens next. ISS’s approach gives that obligation a practical form through visible commitments, regular conversations and follow-up action.

Based on ISS UK & Ireland’s submission and supporting materials for The SHE Show Inspiring Change Awards 2026. Figures and programme progress are as reported by ISS in September 2026.