Posted By golam
Our client HSE Manager is an ex military man he treat any H&S violator on site as a criminal using bad words for them and keep them standing on open sun light while investigating their violation. is this treatment will pass positive message to labour or negative what your says.

Posted By ScotsAM
I agree bob, though it does kind of fly in the face of innocent until proven guilty.

Posted By June-bug
No offence to the previous posters, but I think Golam is trying to ask if the behaviour of the HSE manager is positive and legal. It seems to me he is asking if his military style treatment is suitable in promoting positive h&s culture on site.

Golam, I am not sure what country you are in, and what the laws are; however, it seems to me that using bad language and making people stand in the open sun for hours as punishment while he investigates unsafe acts, or illegal goings on is not right. He can investigate without subjecting anyone to bad treatment. If he is an HSE manager I don’t think he should be using military tactics in any country, unless of course this is a military operation -but the treatment is still weired. There are other more suitable and effective disciplinary methods.

Golam, correct me if I misunderstood your question, that is the sense of what I got you were asking.

Posted By Robert S Woods
I heartily applaud your HSE Managers methods of dealing with suspected H&S violators.

I used to put subject suspects to hours in stress positions to soften them up before questioning them . It was amazing how many more confessions I got than my namby pamby colleagues.

I also found that locking them in a secure compound with my half starved pet rottweiler also loosened perpetrators tongues.

as an aside does anyone know where I can get thumb screws a rack and, or a gallows at a reasonable price?

Posted By Richard Altoft
If he gets the sack over this treatment would he be interested in investigating MPs expenses?
R

Posted By Richard Altoft
Consistency is often key to H&S being taken seriously. When tough management acts tough on productivity and quality shortfalls and then turns a blind eye to H&S shortfalls and bad behaviours then the culture is soon set to indicate that H&S is not important whilst productivity etc is king.
It would be interesting to know how consistent the character involved in his approach to all other management challenges. At least his stance on H&S is not in doubt
R

Posted By Swis
I didn’t see any nail??

P.S. totally wrong approach by the guy, (someone need to tell him that he’s dealing with mature adults now)

Posted By Sally
Depending on what the violation was the description of 'mature adult' also may be erroneous. Adult maybe - mature maybe not.

Different approaches work with different people. I tend to favour the negotiated approach where people comply because they understand the reasons etc etc but sometime the tactic of a bollocking is the best one.

Posted By Jay Joshi
Golam,

Such type of behaviour by a Safety professional is not to be supported and in fact should be condoned.

Yes, there are way and means of maintaining discipline, but this is surely not one.

By the way, what part of the world did this occur??

Posted By Jay Joshi
Sorry, condemned

Posted By ScotsAM
Just to clarify my previous post, I agree that those breaching health and safety legislation whilst being aware they are do so are breaking the law.

However I would in no way condone talking to people in a disrespectful manner, especially infront of colleagues.

I believe in tough management though - going through the train, re-train, counsel and discipline route though.

Posted By golam
thanks for all response
actually my concern was is the treatment will help to develop a positive H&S culture on site or will have negative impact in workforce mind. what i believe is if you want to develop good H&S culture the first thing is respect your workforce there are many way to correct a H&S violator all you have to do is to find out the reason behind the violation is it done intentionally or due to ignorance then in both case we can do such things which can correct them from their base. i believed in one philosophy that if want change peoples behaviour then try to make them understand the negative impact of the act in his or her life and if he comply with H&S the benefit in his or her life. i hope that this this action will correct the violator permanently. hope this will be accepted by most real H&S Professionals.

Posted By Richard Altoft
To change a situation you have to understand the motivation of everyone in the situation and that includes the clients and their staff and not just the workers. If you cannot understand the staff you will not influence them and you will lose chances to influence the whole site and the next project and the one after that and not just those one or two workers who violate H&S rules on each occasion.
I work by changing culture from the top not from the bottom because there are far greater changes to be made that way.
R

Posted By Richard Altoft
You might not like his style as described by Golam but rapid no nonsense intervention is far better in many respects with certain workforces than planning what golam calls retraining at some later date. What is needed is the strength and passion of the clients H&S manager (and lets not forget the HSE readily admit that the client has the greatest influence on safety)to be channelled towards reinforcement of good behaviour as well as condemnation of bad behaviour. Golam seems unable to do that with what he describes as a "ex military" figure. But do not rule out strong intervention in locally understood language. Look at the traditional curve for culture. The most rapid changes in accident rates come from management intervention and that must come first. "Brothers keeper" and mutual respect and appealing to better nature comes last and has least effective in reducing accidents. It is longer lasting but still least rewarding in terms of accident reduction. His style is regrettable but in many workplaces it is both very common but is also what is most effective for immediate interventions. Consider just one example -- that of the geologist crushed to death in a pit collapse that is leading to the first CM and incidentally to a personal manslaughter charge for his boss. Had the clients H&S manager gone to that location during the work and said "get out that (expletive deleted) pit" then the work would have stopped and would have not resumed until the pit was supported properly and a life would have been saved. Golam has a problem with this guy but that should not blind us to the effectiveness with some workforces of strong tactics in getting them to obey the rules set for their own safety.This Is particularly true with men and in transient labour forces and with certain nationalities.If they obey those rules then lives are saved, then and only then can we start to work on other things such as respect and personal styles.
R

Posted By Raymond Rapp
Attitudes and cultures are very different in some parts of the world. I saw a photo of a construction site notice board in Dubai which gave a list of fines for safety violations, such as using unapproved tools, no PAT certificate, causing an accident etc.