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Posted By Raj
There is a Company that employs 3000 staff. they have a Safety Manager and a Safety Officer / advisor.
I would like to know if there is need for an expansion of the Health & Safety Department to oversee the Company's activities.
Please consider whether having Safety inspectors / coordinators / assistants would not lead to the department becoming a Police department?
Should not the Management step in and get involved by taking ownership, demonstrating Commitment nad cascading H&S Accountability throughout the Company (line Management etc)?
Actually there is a need to define the H&S Department's activities and Role in the H&S Practice of the Company.
Please advice.
Thanks
Raj
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Posted By Peter Longworth
The health and safety department should provide an advisory service only. It is up to the management of the company to manage health and safety at an operational level, by conductiong risk assessments, developing safe systems, undertaking inspections etc etc etc.
The health and safety department should periodically audit these activities to ensure ongoing compliance.
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Posted By Merv Newman
I agree on the advisory/auditing role, but if Raj is talking about a manufacturing site then I find the H&S staffing to be inadequate. The average production manager and supervisor usually needs (not necessarily wants) a lot of advice and help in solving day to day problems. This means shop floor presence.
I am currently working with a plant that builds heavy goods vehicules and has 3000+ employees. They have a qualified and experienced safety manager who has six assistants, one for each of the six production departments. The assistants are not qualified safety technicians. They tend to be long service employees, maybe in an "end of career" post, mostly ex supervisors and were chosen for their willingness to learn a new trade (good training assured) and for their good "people" skills. Their brief is to spend as much time as possible "out of the office" ie in the plant.
With this system and a few other bits and pieces introduced about three years ago the number of LTIs has gone from 80 per year to 6 YTD.
From this and other situations, once you have assured that appropriate "competent" resources are available, I would recommend a ratio of 1 safety person to 4 or 500 employees. As a minimum.
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Posted By Raj
Thanks guys, but refering to Merv's statement about support for department head there already is a Safety Committee, the members of which are in an process of continuous training and exposure to H&S information.
What now?
raj
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Posted By Merv Newman
In my experience there are two types of "safety committee" ; "Management" and "Works". In the first there are only managers, including the safety manager. Their job concerns the overall management of H&S for the site and their individual departments. This one has the overall power and budget control but a 1st line supervisor would rarely go to his department head for technical advice on a safety matter.
The "works" safety committee may include a mix of management, supervision and union reps and will include the safety manager. This group may have much more expertise than the former but rarely has the last word on what shall be done.
In both cases supervision and employees need frequent day to day access to aid and advice. This can be obtained through union reps or through the type of people I described. And don't forget that these people have nothing else to do except help and advise management, supervision and employees. They actually have the time to look up the relevant information and to consult with their manager and colleagues.
With either method, or a combination of both, you would still need the minimum ratio I proposed 1 : 500
Merv
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Posted By alex mccreadie
The good thing about these forums are the constructive comments displayed. My opinion is the same as Merv use more Safety Advisors from the existing workforce as there experience is invaluable. This would be the easiest way to convince the Higher Management. I am sure most of us reading these forums have experienced the comment that "safety is paramount within the company but we have to make money to pay for it".Keep the threads coming they are helpful when you feel out on a limb with no one to turn to!!
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Posted By Adam Jackson
I'm not sure there are any hard and fast rules regarding how many H&S specialists you should have per number of employees. I've worked in a company which had a terrible approach to safety where there was 1 full time HSE person (sadly me!) for around 120 employees, and another company where I headed a small group of 3 H&S specialists covering over 5000 employees worldwide and HSE there was excellent. The difference? That old chestnut, the top managers. In the smaller company they didn't care and had someone there just because they thought they had to, and in the bigger one they had a HSE team because the top manager knew it benefited him and the company generally.
My advice would be not to focus on full time [reference removed] but as noted easrlier, look for expertise already within the company. If you can get some shop-floor people involved, even if only a couple of hours a week, provided they're given proper guidance and support from your existing H&S professionals the results can be excellent. Concentrate on these people and the top wallahs and you could well find you are getting excellent results without appointing another full time person.
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Posted By Merv Newman
Developing from Adam's thoughts, I think we are moving on to different levels of safety culture. The simplest (hah !) definition of this that I know is "The product of multiple goal-oriented interactions between people, jobs and the organistion"
Assuming the competence is present to ensure quality, then the inclusion of the words "product" and "multiple" implies quantity. Ideally, this "quantity" starts from senior management and includes everyone in the company. Where quality and quantity are present then safety is not just for the day after the accident, it is for life.
Where management have little direct involvement in H&S then the "quantity" of interactions has to come from somewhere else. Normally this means the H&S group or person. Including wage roll employees in the effort helps to build the safety culture from the bottom up by increasing the "quantity" while ensuring the quality of safety interactions.
Ideally we should try to build the safety culture from both ends. Which is what is happening on the plant I cited earlier.
So, an organisation with a high degree of safety culture with active participation of all levels will automatically have less need for direct day to day presence of a "safety person". 3 or 4 for a 5000+ organisation is perfectly reasonable. An "average" organisation with an "average" safety culture would require the higher ratio that I proposed.
Discuss
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Posted By Adam Jackson
Discuss? I can't, you are right! Middle managers are notoriously the hardest to get to 'buy-in' for a variety of reasons, not least that they are usually the ones under the most pressure to perform from the top. So, as a HSE person, sure aim some of your work at the middle managers but more long-term results can be obtained if the top suits are pushing it downwards and the coal-face employees are pushing it upwards. If those at the top buy in and drive it then the pressures on the middle-managers change from 'doing their job then doing "the safety"', to one where finally the nirvana is achieved of these being one and the same. I must admit, in the 5000+ organisation took a while to get things going, but it is possible without an army of H&S gurus. (Just to boast, purely because it makes me feel good :), we went from 72 lost time accidents a year (of one lost day or more) in 1998 to just 11 globablly last year and I lay that purely at the relative doors of the company president driving it and the recruiting of what have turned out to be excellent reps on all the sites).
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