Posted By Mark Morgan I work for a multi site organisation (2500 over 100 locations). How do other large multi site organisations get their employees to acknowledge or sign for receipt of a new health and safety policy? Here are some ideas we came up with:- message in pay slip. email to all staff. news story on company newsletter or intranet. as part monthly staff briefing. All these ideas dont include a sign off by the employee - or am I getting hung up on this idea of having 2500 slips of paper from staff who have (or have not!) read the safety policy? any views? kind regards, Mark

Posted By Katie Hoyland dont fall into that trap

Posted By Bill Elliott Mark - you are giving yourself an administrative nightmare if you follow that route. Anyway - who says they have read and understood it any way - just because you have a slip of paper with a signature on does not actually mean a lot. As others have indicated we too have a staff safety booklet issued to all on joining us giving an overview of all things safety - we are a large organisation 3500 staff over 220 locations - policy changes are notified by means of briefings, intranet and subsequent training updates.

Posted By Eric Clement one way to cascade your new policy/documents is to have 20 or thirty key persons that you email the document out to. They in turn have a list of people within their remit who has a manual and it is for them to issue it out. This along with training and issuing a global email and publishing the file on the INTRANET should help you cover all bases. Okay not sure if last post was being funny, but the Intranet is different from internet. Internet is the global web access, while intranet is usually a private network inside a company or organization, which uses software like that used on the Internet, but is for internal use only, and is not accessible to the public. Companies use Intranets to manage projects, provide employee information, distribute data and information, etc.

Posted By Lorna Not sure if I can add much, but I cover about 2,000 employees based in 140 sites. We ask each establishment to nominate a H & S Co-ordinator, which is usually someone at a fairly senior level within that particular establishment. They should then ensure that each member of staff within their area has access to and is aware of the contents of the policy. In this way, the method of disseminating the information will depend on the particular cirumstances, and the managers use their judgement on whether a training session would be more useful than sending out a memo asking staff to read the policy. This also helps for sites that do not have access to computers. This role is allocated to the Co-ordinators in the "organisation " part of the Policy. It is not foolproof, but it is a reasonably good way of cascading information.

Posted By Alex Ryding Hi there, the cascade system of sending the info to team/ section leaders then these people cascading it down to their groups does work, and I still get a piece of signed paper. The other method is we have a quality assurance document control system on the PC you can send the doc to all with PCs (and request training to those who do not have PCs) once they have read it, it asks them have they understood it.

Posted By Sylvia Tyler I instigated the sending out of the Safety Health and Safety Policy detailing safety responsibilites for the first time this year for all Senior Managers, supervisors, and those with responsibilities for others. Yes it caused problems, and the HR departments moaned as it created work, but because line managers and directors had to sign to say they had read and understood their responsibilities, guess what? They actually read the document that was sent to them and made constructive comments on how they could implement their responsibilities or asked for assistance. It actually got this thing called "safety" talked about, and yes we can now evidence to potential clients, auditors, HSE and courts that we have a system for providing information to managers on their responsibilities. We also use our Group Intranet to publish the information and ensure all staff are briefed on the contents as it is changed, it's an important part of improving the safety culture throughout an organisation.

Posted By Merv Newman A number of sites I work with go through the cascade system. In addition to the safety booklet, which includes all legally required information, the actual safety policy of the company can be condensed to about 100 words ; "we are committed to doing all that can be done to ensure the health and safety of our employees, ourselves and our colleagues..." At the top level this page is signed by all managers of site senior management. It is then posted at strategic locations on the site. At departmental level the department manager will brief his staff who will then sign the document. Which is then posted on department notice boards. At work group levels, teams are briefed by first line supervisor, they then sign the document and it is posted in their work area. Newcomers and those transferred between departments go through the same briefing and signing ceremony. I have heard of one committed union person (not a safety rep) who refused to sign ANY company document. The plant manager went down and bought him a cup of coffee from the area machine. They chatted quite openly about the situation and the importance of visible committment to safety at all levels. After the manager left the union person asked his supervisor if he could sign-up to the safety policy. Copies of all signed pages are maintained by personnel (especially the one signed by top management)

Posted By John Hackett Hi, new boy on the site so sorry for any "mistakes" Regarding the issue of the H&S Policy, I run sessions lasting about 1 hour for all the relevent people concerned, in groups of around 10 persons. At the end of the session I give each one a form requesting the name of the person, that they have understood the policy, they understand the person to contact in the event of any questions, and a small 'tick box' question paper is also given. This has in fact proved it's worth on many occasions. Hope this may help a little ? Regards John

Posted By Geoff Spanner Agree that requiring staff to sign a statement that they have read and understood a safety policy (or any other guidance document) may satisfy the enforcers, courts and your insurers when things go wrong. However all this demonstrates is that the person can sign their name; even if they have read the document it does not guarantee that they have digested and understood its content. It does little for advancing the cause of effective H&S and Risk Management. Believe that a good lawyer could make a case that an employer had not demonstrated that he had communicated the policy effectively if the proof relied on a signed document only. The proof that the communication has been effective surely is by demonstration. Therefore a simple 'tick box' question paper or something similar, covering the salient points of the document, completed by all persons affected by it and reviewed/analysed by the documents creator(s) could demonstrate effective communication. Unfortunately, as a humble H&S Adviser, I don't have a solution for those who fail to achieve a reasonable 'pass' mark, this is straying into the area of HR and man management. Geoff Spanner