Posted By Chris Packham
It's an interesting comment on how many senior managers perceive things. Environmental issues are dealt with at board level, health and safety is middle management matter. In other words, kill a few fish and that is serious, kill a person and its just an unfortunate accident.

I agree, health and safety should be a major board topic and the health and safety team should report direct to the directors.

Posted By Merv Newman
I always had the level of department head. Even with, deliberatly, no line authority, I could get first line supervisors and workshop managers to do as I advised (underlined) without too much argument.

I may have said this before (sure I have) but there is a direct correlation between safety statistics and the car owned or driven by the highest H&S person. Drive a clapped out mini and you probably have low status in your company, and your stats are probably not that good. Drive a recent BMW and your status is probably high and your stats are probably pretty good.

Horrible warning : persuading company to replace clapped out mini with new BMW will not automatically improve your stats. It usually works the other way around. Improve the stats first and then you may deserve the BMW.

Merv - Danger Consultant

Posted By John Hackett
Good Response, but what if you do not get a company car at all? the reduction in accidents over one and a half years are in the order of 94% and a good culture has been instigated and working, then even the clapped out mini sounds good if it's a company one :-) but cars apart, just look through the 'jobs vacant' adds and see how many H&S guys are under the production manager / HR / Engineer / or in one case under the workshop Forman !!! I think that until the H&S profesional is recognised / treated as such, and is seen as someone in authority who has the last say (under Director) then many will continue to be seen as little more than a scapegoat for the company.
John

Posted By John Hackett
Fair point, but as an administrator you have a duty to perform these tasks, but taking it further, how about if you were a senior H&S manager of the group, but still came under the production manager in one factory !! starts to get a bit silly on this level I think, of course I do have links with the Directors, but if anything is pushed then I get the comment from the production manager that I am "going over his head" places me in a difficult position to work with. Anybody have a vacancy in the midlands for a good H&S Manager :-)
John

Posted By Glyn Atkinson
If you do not have direct budgetary control of Health and Safety, then you line of management should be directly to the Director(s) who have that facility to act.

My rule of thumb is that safety advice and recommendations involving a spend will be put into a formal memo to the Director concerned along with a recommended time scale for action to be completed.

Managers with any objections should then refer back to that Director, not hassle me as the safety advisor / manager.

I find that the previous provision of a good legal responsibilities course to all levels of management and directors has fine tuned their responses and usual moans, and makes my safety recommendations carry more credence as they will know where I am coming from with legislation.

They cannot now relinquish their responsibilities in the usual "Well it's health and safety, isn't it ??"

Reply - "Yes it is, and you are as much involved in your area as I am !"

H&S management are in line of fire all over every production line from every level in most instances and are expected to provide the timely and cost effective solution to most things off the top of their heads !!

So I sympathise with anyone who has to struggle to get their work done through a layer of unhelpful managers in production areas.

Posted By Darren Collinswood
I report directly to the MD who wrote to all management and myself upon my appointment confirming the aithority that I have. For any company to be serious about H&S the H&S professional should report directly into board level management and have the appropriate authority to enable him / her to fullfill the role of protecting both employee and employer.

Posted By Merv Newman
I think we are getting some good responses here. A feeling that we should be direct-reporting to either the highest or second highest level.

I always reported to the HR manager. Never to anyone in a production role. HR paid my salary but, there was no H&S budget. That is a production cost. "I think you need another fire extinguisher. I'll advise you on the type, and where to put it. You organise purchase, installation and training of your people"

Having worked directly with at least 50 H&S people over the past years I have only ever found a few who did not report to RH or the MD. These usually had 1st line levels, and sometimes even that was not merited.

Merv

Posted By AlB
Hah!

And then when the work needs to be done, there's been no plans to finance it, so it has to wait till the following year!!

And then when the HSE Inspector comes in, you get knocked for not having secured funding for it.

The joys of the job!!!

Posted By snt
This is quite an interesting topic. And I am going to be blunt in my reply. To start with here are posers:
1. Is there a legal requirement that a company should have a Health and Safety Manager?
2. If there is a legal requirement, what is the minimum standard for such person tobe appointed to the post?

In another vein, a Health and Safety Manager within an organisation does not necessarily have to be directly reporting to the MD, it all depends on the organisation structure. Moreover, how many H&S managers have other transferable skills such as financing, technology, mamagement or production management skills? Hence, they can be under the production manager's supervision. Various H&S posts are advisorial roles (GLORIFIED HEALTH AND SAFETY REPRESENTATIVE). To suggest that a production manager does not have a H&S certificate (as mentioned somewhere above) is not a criteria to judge the production manager. Various MBA, Engineering and Technological based courses have elements of H&S in their core courses. Most adverts for H&S posts stipulates NEBOSH Gen cert as minimum. I stand to be corrected on this, where was business or production management dealt with in that particular course?

As to departmental budget, how many employees do you directly control for the day to day management of H&S? In larger companies where the H&E manager have direct resposibility for up to five employees, it might be possible, but it is not mandatory as the management structure will determine. Certain companies have a specialised department for this.

An ideal position for Health and Safety should should be like this:

Small company - Contract this position out or have a part time position.
SME - An entry level certificate with a minimum NEBOSH Gen Cert. This role can be attached to another role.
Large - A dedicated Health Advisor with minimum NEBOSH Dip
Larger Organisation - A dedicated Health and Safety Manager/Director with minimum NEBOSH Dip/MSC H&S and Environment + Quality Management Skills + Proeject Management + Business Management skills or MBA.

Before you lambast me, think of your role and what you can contribute to the company apart from H&S. Similar professional bodies have been including this in their core syllabuses.

Posted By AJM
With reference to snt above, I stand by what i said because i live it first hand where everything is about production because everytime i go to him as production manager its production first. I am sorry but why do all these companies say safety first if they dont mean it. It really gets my back up, good effective safety management done the correct way can save a company a fortune problem is most dont have the foresight to see it.

For instance we are 50% down on accidents since i was here thats a saving of 5000 pounds a month on HSE figures. But you know what they say "Their is nobody so blind as those that dont want to see"

To further explain the problems,I recently had an awareness powerpoint to deliver to 30 fork truck drivers lasting an hour i had to do them one person or two at a time. I was word perfect come the last session of course but its not effective time management. Anything affecting production or quality they fetch them off the shop floor in their droves.

As for the legal requirement question for a health and safety manager, then no just to ensure a competent person is employed to assist with the employers legal duties, but most of the time this competence is not tested till in the courts which is usually to late.

Finally as a Health and Safety Manager here i am responsible for the safety of 250 employees, how hard do you think that is without a safety budget, or resources or backing or manpower to deliver whats required.

I am getting some corporate liability training for my directors and senior managers hopefully it might dawn on them then.

There endeth the moan

Alan

Posted By Stupendous Man
Bit of an open-ended one this. It's quite similar to the question of 'what salary should I be on?' (whatever your employer is willing to pay you is my reply).

So, in the same vein, I would suggest that the H&S Manager should be at the level that the company sees fit. Of course this will depend largely on the nature of the company and its operations, it's desire to manage H&S effectively and the persuasiveness of us as H&S professionals.

Posted By John Lewis
Hi, me again seeing as I seem to have set off the "second" part of this thread I thought I had better put a little positive something back. Find a book called "Unblocking organisational Communication" by a bloke called Dave Francis. He tries to explain how to improve in house communication generally and it is all worthwhile stuff.

I think it is in this book that he recounts a Director level meeting where the subject was "What do we do as a Company". The facilitator wrote on the flip chart, "we ignore H&S, we ignore the environment, we do not care about our people, we do not care about those who live around our plant, we are driven by profit alone ........" The Directors found they could not argue against these assertions.

Might help, perhaps ...........

John

Posted By garyh
I note many of the posts (rants) on this subject.

I would say that in work, as in life, try to see things from the other person's point of view. How many of you safety manager's and officers have looked at it from the production manager / director etc's point of view?

I am a senior manager responsible for everything in my branch of the organisation (including safety). I have to see everything; it's all about business priorities, managing risk and looking at cost / benefit. When I was a safety manager only, I saw things differently, and had only a vague idea of the balancing act a manager has to do.

In my view someone who is a good manager, generally speaking, is good at managing safety, however if you are a good safety manager/officer this may not transfer over to being a good general manager - think about it.

One final point (at this point I realise I may be poking a wasp's nest with a stick) - to all those people who say their advice is ignored and so on - hold a mirror to yourself.

Could it be that you influencing / presentation skills and / or reporting skills are not good enough? If so, consider training (and CPD, done properly, may help).

Posted By AJM
Here, Here, John a good point well put.

I repeat I am not saying the production manager should not be fully interested in production after all its his job, BUT it has to be a conflict of interests when the Health and Safety Manager and Quality Manager are trying to drive changes through him as their boss, which is how it is here.

and as for the other point I also know its no good being the safest company around thats shut!

Alan

Posted By John Hackett
Very well put, the HSE are very much akin to taking the H&S person to task over sometimes trival things, but I have yet to see them backing the system to help us? but of course I am willing to be corrected on this.

I sometimes think it is a bit like giving the person a car, but then not giving them the petrol to use it.

John

Posted By John Hackett
As I said before, I will not get drawn into personel things, and I most certainly do not try to impress people, but maybe if many of the "outdated" things were still of value then this country would be a better, safer place to live ? I the same as you are no more than a H&S person and to this end we are all on the same level trying to make the workplace a safer place to be in, trying to stab people in the back is not the way to go forward.

I now consider this subject closed and will no longer reply to any posts.

John