Hi Guru

That would depend on which safety rules your employees are not following.

IMO for serious, or potentially dangerous occurrances it is immediate writing warning. For a minor occurrance the line manager gives a non-official verbal warning, after that it follows the company disciplinary procedures.

Mike

It is my view that h&s practitioners should not be directly involved in the discipline of staff. Practitioners should concentrate on performing an impartial investigation and report, then leave it to management to decide whether formal disciplinary action is appropriate.

I agree with Ray, I often see people on the forums suggesting that HR should be disciplining people etc. Although HR may ‘own’ the process it is not the function of HR to actually discipline people and the same goes for H&S. In most cases neither HR nor H&S have the ‘authority’ to do so. Discipline is a management function, and rightly so, that is where the ‘authority’ lies. Managers are not ‘immune’ from the process, so if it is them that have failed then …………

A positive safety culture and discipline are not a contradiction or mutually exclusive, indeed I would argue that ‘discipline’ and where necessary taking disciplinary action are a necessary and integral part of a positive safety culture.

I wish I could fnd that case law!

Phils views are spot on. Only line managers should have the authority to decide disciplinary sanctions. HR are there to ensure that the correct disciplinary procedures are applied consistently and fairly.

HS staff are not the H&S police, this is an old fashioned view. HS staff support the line management (supervisors, managers etc) who are responsible for HS in their areas of control.

With regard to the OP and where to draw the line on discipline I would promote the use of "Cardinal Rules", these are rules by which most people (management & workforce) would find it unacceptable to break eg by-passing a critical safety device / system, an action creating significant risk of serious injury.
Many top performing organisations have cardinal rules agreed between the Management and TUs. A breach of these rules would be treated as gross misconduct.

The normal disciplinary rules should be applied to misconduct for not adhering to management instructions.

We need these disciplinary sanctions to deal with "risk takers"
Steve

With regards to the disciplining of persons and H&S not having a role, would you in that case go to a supervisor or manager to stop a persons activity's which placed him or others in danger, or would you stop the operation there and then. Does not your role place you as a manager.

Stevel: The line you have highlighted is the one that separates a safety issue from a disciplinary one. Of course stop the activity but that has no bearing on the disciplinary action that may follow.

Disciplinary issues are not within the remit (normally) of the safety professional, although I have to say I've observed many instances where people at all levels of "safety" have abused their position in this way.

If you discipline a person, regardless of his/her employment status (employee, contractor, subcontractor) you are denying them the right to work. If the person is an employee, they have recourse to employment law so why should the same rules not apply to contractors (as suggested in the posts above).

Yes, your disciplinary procedure MUST be outlined from the start to all persons working in your plant, factory, site etc. and then must be followed, without prejudice.

Guru
A little more food for thought on this matter.
A no blame culture does not mean that no one will be disciplined for failing to follow procedures.

An organisation operating a No Blame culture looks at incidents, failures or faults as a failure in their management systems ie HS Management Systems.
This mind set of looking at problems / incidents leads to the Root Cause so that action can be taken that will prevent a repeat of the problem.

The Root Cause of almost all Health & Safety Incidents / Accidents is a failure of the H&S Management System.

A "Blame Culture" only looks at the guilty party rather than the reason behind it.

But we cannot accept deliberate violation of the rules.

Steve

Stevel, I think you're misrepresenting me there. If someone is in breach of your safety rules it's your duty to ensure that corrective action is taken. For me, should the situation warrant it, this may well be disciplinary action but should be the duty of the line manager and not "safety". For a safety professional to be judge, jury and executioner is a dangerous thing.

In a perfect world every company would have a HR department who would, naturally, assume disciplinary functions ensuring that they are carried out fairly and to set company policies/procedures. I appreciate that not everyone has recourse to a HR department but I feel safety professionals should proceed carefully in that case because (IMHO) too many don't. Summary dismissals in the heat of a moment happen far too often in my experience and mostly through ignorance of the law.

Regarding safety managers and disciplinary functions, I personally don't believe that the two go together and, unless I'm mistaken, it's not covered in any safety course, anywhere.

Mick

I in no way tried to misrepresent you, apologies if you felt I did. But you did state you would be denying them work.
But I still feel that any manager including H&S should, if the need is just, be able to dispense disciplinary actions at all levels regardless of employment status.

I agree with the sentiments that line management should deal with breaches of EHS rules, we try and use a Performance improvement plan (PIP) approach, this gives the person defined goals related to their EHS performance. These are always time bound and measurable, failure to achieve and sustain the required standard could lead to disaplinary action. Also been on a PIP can impact on pay where a performance pay system is used.

In general I would tend to agree, but I suggest that there are occasions, such as a gross breach, when decisive disciplinary action is necessary, reasonable and justifiable.

With reference to an earlier post; not all disciplinary action denies people the 'right to work', (I'm not sure if there actually is a right to work as such) and arguably certain breaches of safety rules means that some workers forfeit that 'right'. It is of course important that procedures are followed and that there is access to natural justice. This doesn't mean that workers who break rules, or who are negligent etc can continue to work without some form of sanction. That would of course be a nonsense, and a responsible employer should discipline, where necessary for the protection of other workers, the general public, and dare I say the company. Employment law won't, unfortunately always come to the rescue.

Stevel, no apologies required. Let me make the following points.

1. All employees MUST have the disciplinary procedures explained to them so that they understand (a) what is required of them and (b) the consequences of a breach.
2. Safety breaches should trigger the disciplinary procedure and where the breach is serious enough that may result in dismissal.
3. My concern here is centered on the fact that elements within this thread suggest to me that some may be in a position to perform the role of judge, jury and executioner. I feel that it's important to highlight the need to step carefully in such a circumstance in case it is the safety practitioner who finds themselves in breach of the law.

Phil, I'm no solicitor but I believe that everyone has a basic right to work, in other words that an employee cannot be fired without an agreed disciplinary procedure being followed.

Believe me, I wholly support the disciplinary procedure process from minor to serious breaches. That's not my point. My point is that it must be done by the book.

Mick, nor am I and I absolutely agree that appropriate and legal disciplinary procedures are followed. I think my post at #22 makes that clear. The general point that I was making was that not all disciplinary hearings result in dismissal (denying the right to work) and I was also making the point that certain breaches of rules mean that the person has themselves denied themselves the right to work.

I was interested in the post at #23, and I may be reading it wrong, or too literally. Anthony, surely your company/your insurer, isn't suggesting that somebody is disciplined merely because they have had an accident/been injured/made a claim? That would in itself be an extraordinary approach. Surely any disciplinary action must be based on the fact that the injured party has breached a 'rule' rather than the fact that they have merely injured themselves or is making a claim (an element of which would need to establish negligence by the employer, either directly or vicariously). Where someone has injured themselves through their own negligence, then this would be a mitigating factor for the defence (possibly even a volenti defence) and if the case was successful then you would think the award would be reduced due to 'contrib'.

Phil, your suggestion re my post is correct - We would never administer performance management in this way i.e. just because there was an accident/claim if anything this would exacerbate the situation. The discipline would be on the breach of the rule that could lead to a claim or loss, if it warranted the action. If there was a clear breach and we had not taken action it would demonstrate that we do not enforce our own rules as such they a worthless.