Hi firestar I like you agree that if you make a mistake you should admit to it. My role is one of a General Manager and the company Health and Safety adviser. I have absolutely no problem admitting to anyone on the shop floor or my Directors that I have got something wrong, why should I, as you rightly state you learn from the experience. I also feel that my staff appreciate it when I go back to them and tell them that they were right and I was wrong on something it shows respect, which is a two way thing! MG

Good points and I think we have all seen the type of manager that thinks that they are infallible and cover up when they make mistakes. Also as stated you have the other managers who know their not perfect and quite willingly admit to their mistakes. With both types though, who has the most support from the workforce and gets better results? As for discipline it isn’t one punishment that fits all, a verbal warning, informal and nothing written down. It’s still disciplining someone and I don’t see a problem in this. For more serious occurrences then more severe the punishment, although setting up a flogging post in the yard may be a step too far! As for health and safety then discipline must be part of this as not all can be encourage to be safe. However, if you know that you will be in front of the boss for not wearing your hard hat on site, then that is a good deterrent. If someone makes a mistake and then admits to that mistake, shouldn’t be exempt from being disciplined. Someone may use that to their advantage. However, if the discipline is applied at a sensible level to the individual involved then this shows that the company will enforce its health and safety policy.

Firestar, Although I agree with your comments - in practice this is not what happens in the non military world! I to believe that discipline helps to educate people in the rights and wrongs and helps to show them the correct path to follow. However be warned that this has a negative - this is that you can find that the reporting structure is compromised and you will not get to know about near-misses. There is a fine balance that must be applied to ensure that you get reporting of all incidents and issuing discipline. The balance must always include good strong firm, but fair supervision.

My personal opinion is aligned with the majority of the posts here, I believe you get more from "having a word in their ear" than you do with the sledgehammer approach. Having said that there is a counterpoint to consider. Are we not compounding the problem if we ignore the disciplinary procedure? What if we let someone off and then they go and cause an accident after repeating an unsafe action? Are we not then placing ourselves in the firing line when it comes to apportioning blame? Do we become culpable because we ignored the company disciplinary procedure? Might a judge point the finger at us?

I have always advocated the use of the disciplinary process for repeated or wilful failure to follow safe procedures, after other avenues have been explored (eg why is the system failing, why does this person not comply). A classic scenario for use would perhaps be the over-riding of a safety interlock, or maybe a production manager instructing an employee to proceed while knowing that a dangerous situation was in place. In practice, many (most?) managers/supervisors are very uncomfortable using this tool for H&S issues but that is more of a training/education gap than anything else.

I welcome debate and like to learn from it but unfortunately at present my opinions may be biased due to events within my present employment. It may be too tempting to use recent events as an argument so will bow out gracefully. Due respect to all who posted and I always enjoy your opinions and advice.