Posted By p winter Can anyone suggest any good reasons why a H&S department should not be combined with a HR department. I am trying to resist this possible change and need all the arguments I can muster to avoid this. Thanks in advance Peter

Posted By Bob Youel In my personal experience [having been a HR manager myself in the past]I find that H&S covers a different area than HR does even though there is an overlap i.e. people management; where procurement of equipment, ensuring CDM is complied etc are areas outside HR so there is no experience there and HR is seen as a management helper [tool] whereas H&S is not usually seen in the same light so usually H&S loses out because of this and in many cases a clash can develope between the 2 cultures e.g. stress where I have attended case meetings and the opinions and attitudes from HR and H&S were completely different! The head person of the business unit usually ends up being the HR person with no real competence in H&S [ I am sure other 'posters' may have comments here!] so HR issues will get the lead unless the head of HR and the company philosophy are modern and very fair H&S should in my personal opinion be with risk management, legal or finance with a brief to support all areas and to date its rarer than rare to find a H&S professional leading a HR unit or holding an even ranking post to HR its almost always the other way around I have held confidential info back from HR as I should do [my decisions have been backed up by the companies barristers etc] but management have not liked this approach as many a time it has been stated that HR do not do this so why should you; so management see me as different even though I am working for the overall good of the company! Argue your case from financial areas and add in that there are H&S enforcers but no HR enforcers all the best

Posted By p winter Bob Many thanks for your comprehensive reply which does echo my own concerns. Overall I feel HR will overwhelm us and H&S will end up taking second place and be seen as of secondary importance. In some ways fear of bad press and falling foul of employment law seems to carry a lot of weight with the people at the top. Obviously I will fight my corner and your imput wil help Many thanks Peter

Posted By Alan Hoskins Whilst there is no real problem in being attached to HR in terms of day to day line management (sickness/leave etc) it is important that functional activity is not via the head of HR as this removes any independance that H&S requires. As others have said, HR is supposed to be independent, but is perceived to be (and often is) a management tool. We are linked into HR for line management purposes but we report directly to a member of our Directorate on functional matters. There is no interference from HR in this respect and consequently we maintain our independant status. It works for us and in many ways is better than being part ofan Estates Department... Alan

Posted By Steve Rhodes I'm afraid I am in the "not in HR" camp. Normally allowed to get on with things and report back as required conflict has arisen over the introduction of an employee wellbeing programme. Informal discussions over dinner with the head of HR have made it very clear HR priority is to support and protect the employer and is not about staff wellbeing. HR are in fact heavily involved in process of change, including redundancies as a result of which stress is being manifested within the organisation. Efforts to provide support to staff through this period have fallen on deaf ears

Posted By Richard Beevers I must agree with Bob, and other posters on the not HR approach. I've worked in H&S within an HR department, and found it very difficult to work there. Although there was some overlap on stress / occupational health / training elements, much of my real working relationships ended up being with the CEO and the Operations manager. In fact I'm now just coming to the end of a secondment which has involved seperating out the H&S functions from HR. It was realised that there wasn't the full focus on the H&S aspects, and some of the management of H&S had become rather focussedon employee welfare, rather than on risk management. I do believe that H&S and HR need to effectively work together to safeguard people's safety and health - that they should be close allies - but not the same department. Especially (to echo other comments) if they are headed by a purely HR professional without enough expertise in the H&S field. @l.

Posted By Clare Gabriel My role as Group HSE Manager sits in the HR function and it works terribly well. My boss is very HSE focused and we have in place a comprehensive strategic plan. Whilst many of the posts cannot be argued with I think it comes down to two things - the competency of the HR director and the view of HSE within the company. Clearly the person who posted originally has concerns but I think it is clearly horses for courses. Having been in safety for 20 years I have sat both with ops and hr. Being in ops can have its downsides too - it can be self policing, you can struggle for budget - when production vs safety, if there is a major issue you can be seen to be turning 'on your own'. This is an interesting forum discussion and interesting to see both sides of the argument.

Posted By Bob Youel Without both professions any company struggles so we should all work together. However some HR and some H&S professionals alike tend to want to empire build

Posted By Jane Smythe Brian I think that many people view H&S in the same light, and sometimes reading the posts on here I have to wonder.......;-) Jane

Posted By J Knight I think there are dangers in allying H&S too closely with any operational function; too much scope for conflict of interest, John

Posted By Phizzle JK Being Devil's Advocate here... Shouldn't the aim of H&S be to become part of day to day Operational Management? Therefore could we argue that aligning itself with Operational Management is one way of achieving this.....? (Sorry to hijack, but interested in this subject as holistic safety management is the basis of my MSc Dissertation!) Ian

Posted By J Knight Hi Ian, Martin hits the nail on the head; aligning with isn't the same as being managed by. I agree that H&S management has to be influential in and respected by all the various functions of an organisation, but at the end of the day we can sometimes be responsible for bad news or unwelcome decisions. It's at that point where we need to be able to act independently of operational managers. It's true that a lot will depend on the personalities of the operational managers in question; they may be realistic enough to take unwelcome advice as it is and act on it, on the other hand they could try to bring undue influence to bear on the H&S professional. Me, I've always taken the safe and traditional view on this one; remain independent of operations, John

Posted By PJR I think that it depends on the people involved. I have worked with many HR professional who have been supportive, treating me as a fellow professional and with respect. There is a lot of overlap between the two and increasingly so with the focus on costs relating to absence and ill health, stress etc. I think that we worry too much about this as H&S professionals and forget that its what we want to make of it.We need to develop the skills to influence people at all levels to be successful. I've often listened to H&S pros who moan about being the poor relations in an HR setup. I am a senior manager in one and don't feel like the poor relation at all.