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This paper reports on a study of companies using homeworkers, carried out to gather information regarding the employment status of homeworkers and the health and safety provision afforded to homeworkers. It considers traditional industrial homeworking and home teleworking. For those having employee status, health and safety provision was not necessarily commensurate with legal requirements. In the case of self‐employed status, the health and safety provision was deemed adequate if the employment status was one of genuine self‐employment. However, as the analysis of the data suggests if the status was one of employment, then the health and safety provision is not adequate.

Partnership arrangements in industry have increased in interest because of the perceived business benefits that these alliances can bring to organisations. However, it has been claimed that it is important to align organisational cultures in order that these partnership arrangements are successful. This case study reports a benchmark assessment of employee and contractor safety climates in an offshore oil company that operated contractor partnership agreements in the North Sea. The study used a questionnaire in order to assess safety climates in terms of employees’ and contractors’ perceptions of safety management, workplace conditions and safety concerns. Factor analysis and structural equation modelling were used to support the benchmark study in order to compare the employees’ and contractors’ beliefs in the organisation’s health and safety philosophy. The results obtained indicated that safety climates could be aligned in organisations that operate partnership agreements within a recognised health and safety management system. It is suggested that the approach presented is appropriate for benchmarking safety climates before and after partnership arrangements have been established in order to determine the level of cultural alignment that has been achieved.

Claims there is growing application of continuous improvement strategies across a wide range of operational activities. This paper reports on a case study, set in the UK research division of a multinational chemical company, in which the six key principles of continuous improvement have been applied to health and safety management. The case study builds on the benefits of a proactive team‐based approach and addresses workforce behaviours and practices. The study emphasises, in particular, the importance of the integration of the process into the existing health and safety management system in order to address the long‐term maintenance issues. In order to achieve this, communication of strategic targets, milestones, progress and the involvement of all employees in the continuous improvement process have been identified as of paramount importance.