Posted By Anwar Afzal Hi Mel Sometimes it is best to get the assistance of an external safety practitoner to get the message across simply because they feel that they are in a better postion than you and dont value your input with importance however someone they dont know would have a more serious approach and put them in a postion of responsibilty. It needs only to be a one day course hitting the right message across to them. I am sure it will wake them up Good luck

Posted By Charley Farley-Trelawney Mel I had a conversation with a practitioner recently who was experiencing a similar situation as you have detailed. They made arrangements for a local EHO to call in and view the workplace; I would consider this to be a bit radical but it has had the desired effect, now nothing takes place without the H&S Manager being fully consulted to ensure the company remains compliant; as I say, fairly unusual, but it has worked for them very well indeed. CFT

Posted By Anwar Afzal What charley says maybe be a good idea if you know the local EHO, however it may have reprocussions if you dont and they start to find things wrong, which they will because of the relaxed culture. Might be an idea to do an audit highlighting the problems and see if they react.

Posted By Sheila EJ Keogh Mel, perhaps you could remind them of their legal responsibilities as managers, and then give them an overview of the supposedly forthcoming Corporate Manslaughter bill? I have the same problems here, as I think most H&S advisers do. Basically, we're banging our heads against bricks walls for most of the people, most of the time. Would suggest you reference to previous prosecutions and jailings of directors etc - although you are talking to the "mere" managers this might be effective. If top dog is supporting you then get him/her to give up 15 minutes of time to open up your presentation and tell them directly the amount of importance s/he places on h&s and how s/he expects that all managers will take this seriously and follow your policies and procedures (or risk disciplinary action). All the best - i know what you're up against!!

Posted By AJM Well I don't know where to start Melanie, I really wondered if I was the only one out here with the same issues as you. I could really make you shudder with some of my horror stories, because it is a fact you and me could change the world but none of us can do it alone you need back up and support from all levels. I am in manufacturing and it is exactly the same its all about how you get stuff through the door and everyone else are casualties. I Know how bad it seems at times. You see what makes it worse is I came from a big Japanese company that had most things in place to one that had little I had all your problems and more when I first started. I agree with the earlier thread it is better to outsource this type of higher management training. We had something called corporate liability training for directors it certainly did wake them up a bit, especially when they were told if the company was fined it would come straight out of their accounts not the companies. I also did a lot of direct awareness training with line leaders and section managers, you see simply put they are the vital link. There is a saying I use a lot with them "You can only expect the people you are responsible for's best safety attitude to be as good as your worst safety attitude" Its a code they must live by but once again this has to be driven from the top. Another analogy I use is the gambler do you want to pay £400 for that job to be done or face this £40000 for not complying fine your choice your gamble. After all the most successful businesses in the world are firmly based on good safety foundations it pays to be safe I have always had reasonable success with the hearts and minds approach but you can be the best safety person and talker in the world but if you are not supported in your quest you wont change the core things. I have reduced accidents 50%, So I am saving the company £4000 a month at present, but its not something they can see in figures so you don't get the plaudits you deserve. So Its hard but I love it that's why I do it the changing of peoples attitudes is one of the most rewarding parts of my job. But I fully empathize with you I know how frustrating and hard it is at times. In fact I am starting people like us should have our own support group lol. I have various Ideas and PowerPoint's etc If you need any help e-mail me direct I will help you where ever I can.

Posted By Caro M How about taking some photos of any current issues in your own workplace to put in your presentation and then highlight the type of accident that this may cause, the costs (broken down into loss of production, fines, sick pay, loss of reputation, etc, etc.) Even better if you can find a case study for a similar accident to show that these things really do happen. There are quite a few good forklift case studies around and i'm sure there are others. A lot of the time people are blinkered about what they do actually being of any risk, it's the old 'but we've always done it this way and its been ok' attitude.

Posted By Bob Shillabeer Mel, Have you tried giving a copy of the Corporate Manslaughter bill to each director and senior manager with a note 'This Could Be You' explaining this is what the company faces and stating that individuals also face the risk of prosecution for manslaughter if there is enough evidence or at least under section 2 and 3 of the HASAWA.

Posted By Ali Useful would be to get hold of recent prosecutions from the HSE website for a variety of offences / breaches, showing the importance of H&S and the consequences of apathy or laissez faire attitude, which I think you are dealing with.

Posted By Dave Wilson Couldn't agree more john it HAS to come from the top down!

Posted By Kenneth Patrick This is the view of our Chief Executive. The safety of all employees and contractors is the most important indicator of our abilities as leaders and managers. • We cannot be a great company nor can we say we pursue excellence in all we do, if we do not provide a safe and healthy workplace. • We must engage everyone in every single location to be passionate about safety - our journey to excellence will take all of our efforts, consistently, everyday.”

Posted By Glyn Atkinson Hi, Melanie, E mail me off forum, I know the contact work details of a little lady - only five feet tall - a chartered safety engineer, who had all my directors quivering with court cases and prosecutions from similar industries to ours inside two hours. She had them worried about being in the dock and wearing handcuffs, bad local and national publicity, loss of sales through information getting out to our dealerships, and referring to a previous poor safety record four years ago. Boy, did that make my job so much easier !! The view from the external safety expert !!

Posted By Charley Farley-Trelawney Mel If you log in you will be able to see the email details of people that allow them to be seen. CFT

Posted By Malcolm Hogarth Mel, As I was scrolling through the responses to your query I ticked them off one by one and would go along with all of them. I too have worked in manufacturing in the past and often thought of myself as the token safety person battling against an incoming tide. Do not despair and keep plugging away. It is reassuring that you have the big boss on side as this can only be a bensfit. I get the impression that your company safety record as a whole must be quite good and that the workforce have not had a wake up call as a result of an enforcement visit. I had two or three occcassions where we had enforcement visits as a result of over 3 day 'RIDDORS'and the inspectors comments at the debriefs were very helpful as they tended to mirror my own previous comments. Back to the matter at hand; in addition to the responses already posted you might consider the following: Inviting a representative from your insurer to give a presentation. Talk about individual resonsibilites and sections 36 & 37 Get information of notices and prosecutions relative to your industry from the HSE prosecutions database. Hope this helps, Good luck, Malcolm

Posted By Melanie Black Hi All, The company safety record is good. We have had two HSE inspections in the last three years, and both were very positive. I just feel that health and safety issues are taking a bit of a back seat at the moment, and I want to bring it back to the forefront of the managers' minds. Every single thread has given me some fantastic ideas. I am very much on my own here in that there is nobody else within the company I can turn to for advice on health and safety, and it is great that this forum allows people to share problems and suggest solutions. It is great to know there are plenty of people who have been in the same boat and have managed to sale through the storm. Bring it on!!! Mel

Posted By Frank Hi Mel Going back over some old threads and i was wondering if you had won over the management? Frank

Posted By Kieran J Duignan In response to your simple question, 'How do you win managers over?, it depends on what exactly you want to do when you 'win them over'. To the extent that you want to influence their behaviour in specific ways, I recommend that you make that message clear and simple. Contextual Behavioural Science offers you powerful support. It is part of the 'third wave' of behavioural psychology and does not, REPEAT 'NOT', require understanding of what has become the brand known as 'behavioural safety'. To the extent that you don't really want to influence specific forms of behaviour of managers, I don't really know why they should do anything else than they are accustomed to doing as they are, from what you write, apparently being reinforced to continue doing what they do.

Posted By Kieran J Duignan Jeff To answer your (interesting) question about NLP adequately and fairly, I'd need to understand the context(s) in which it would be applied. I've done the basic training and read some useful material about NLP especially about using it to 'sell' imaginatively and ethically. But there are also major pitfalls especially for the unwary and the NLP evangelists. If you would like to phone me between 7 and 8 p.m. some evening (on 020 8654 0808),I'd be happy to have a brief discussion about it.

Posted By Kieran J Duignan Jeffrey Scientific evidence supporting NLP is not very strong - although the same can be said of a lot of methodologies used in management. A guy called Michael Hall has developed a variant of NLP - called 'neurosemantics' - that is more rigorous than the invention of Grinder and Bandler. (He developed it from a physicist/epistemologist called Alfred Korzybski, who also influenced the development of personal construct psychology, which in turn fuelled cognitive behaviourism.) If you are interested in a rigorous scientific approach to language and cognition, Relational Frame Theory is in a totally superior league to NLP; there's a free online tutorial on RFT at www.contextualpsychology.org. While RFT is challenging, a few of us have started a SIG to relate it to work contexts, including safety management which, when you think about it, relies very much on language as a means of influencing behaviour. Hence my challenge to Melanie is to communicate more specifically with her management colleagues about the specific behaviour she invites them, individually, to improve. There may well be common behavioural areas for them to improve, as well as specific ones she has in mind. Unless Melanie personally takes initiatives to use language inventively to actively coach them to behave differently, from her account there is no evident reinforcement likely to influence them. And I estimate that, unless Melanie does coach them to change their behaviour, at least 95% of the proposals on this website will remain just that.

Posted By John Murgatroyd Alternatively: "a safe department costs more to run than an unsafe department" At least in the short term. I think it's middle and lower management you have to win over. They're the ones who are notoriously disinterested in H&S, and the ones who are time-served in back-stabbing. It's frequently their only talent or skill.

Posted By Jeffrey Watt Thanks Kieran I will check out the references. Mervster That wasn't the style of NLP I had in mind. I picked up that it was a way of influencing people by mirroring them, so that they think you are more like them and therfore are more susceptable to your ideas/sales patter/chat up line etc. Your version sounds a lot more shocking; a combo of Jordan and Alan Sugar (shudder, its awful but I can't not look aaarrggghhhh). Thanks again Jeff