Posted By Fitzy Hi All, This is something myself and a few other safety professionals have come up against, and have been discussing lately. I just wanted to gauge what others thought. We have the regular arguements about having to comply with legisation met with the usual counter arguement - sure we have never seen a HSE inspector, and we know as employers a company has moral duties etc. What are the other angles from which people approach this arguement. I think its always helpful to source other peoples views.

Posted By Pete48 Fitzy, You haven't mentioned economic but I guess that is in your list already, if not it can work if you find examples that are relevant to your business. I once wrote out a risk assessment and method statement that mirrored the way the work was being done including all the "short cuts and common sense", it included a statement that we had never had a claim in 30 years nor a serious accident and thus despite working outside the codes of practice we were satisfied that the risks were acceptable. I took it to the manager who was being unhelpful and asked him to sign it as the responsible manager. After what I think some would call a "full and frank discussion" where he did most of the discussing, he saw the message and we did begin to move forward. A method to be used with caution but very powerful.

Posted By Ian G Hutchings Hi Depending on the company I normally use the Kings Cross fire as an example. "Why should we be concerned about fire on the underground, it hasn't happended before". A serious incident or injury can destroy a company's reputation. There are examples of large and small companies that this has happended to. Why take the risk? Some of Jim Reason's work is good when it describes the 'unrocked boat' i.e. a company that is heading for the rocks but doesn't even know it. It may happen in ten weeks it may happen in ten years, but chances are it will happen. One small(ish) contractor I worked with won a great contract, invested loads of money in new people and a new office, made several safety errors then lost the big contracts - reputation down the pan; no more work and end of the business. As long as it is sensible and proportionate it is all about business protection and revenue protection (as well as peoples lives). I have found that you need to present a cost argument. If they haven't had many losses, what you can do is take an excellent performance example over a number of years and show them how much it can save them. In comparison you can show the cost of just one major injury requiring on average an extra £180,000 in turn over to replace the lost profit (if they average 10% profit); and that's just the direct costs.