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kofi17  
#1 Posted : 01 June 2011 13:58:26(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
kofi17

Hi Guys If you have been appointed a Safety Officer for a Security & Printing Company and they do not have anything in place with regards to Health and Safety, where would you start from? It's a medium size company. Any advice would be appreciated. Kind Regards Kofi
kofi17  
#2 Posted : 01 June 2011 13:59:42(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
kofi17

Hi Guys If you have been appointed a Safety Officer for a Security & Printing Company and they do not have anything in place with regards to Health and Safety, where would you start from? It's a medium size company. Any advice would be appreciated. Kind Regards Kofi
Waldman27147  
#3 Posted : 01 June 2011 14:05:47(UTC)
Rank: New forum user
Waldman27147

Dear Kofi Please use the links below for a wealth of information: http://www.hse.gov.uk/printing/index.htm http://www.businesslink....layer?topicId=1073858799
martin1  
#4 Posted : 01 June 2011 14:08:11(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
martin1

I always start with incident reporting and risk assessment. If they have neither then get them started immediately looking at the higher risk operations and put in a simple incident reporting process. Works best if the individual managers / supervisors do their own assessments and pick your brains along the way. The head honcho need to get his weight behind all this otherwise you are stuffed. Whilst they are doing this make yourself a hit list of all the obvious legislation where you might expect to see some records: LOLER PUWER Fire risk assessments etc ( running through the HSE publication catalogue listings will always start the bells ringing and remind you of things you may have forgotten ). Get them to a minimum legal compliance standard first. Not easy if they really have zero in place. Most of the places I have worked have had something - even if not every much.
Smith24525  
#5 Posted : 01 June 2011 14:30:15(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
Smith24525

I would look at setting up a Health & Safety Management stratergy (HSG65), then start carrying out risk assessments for the significant risks, i.e Fire, Manual Handling, COSHH etc. i think there will be a few of those risks in the printing industry. Have a look at the workforce, to identify any training needs and organise that as soon as possible. You may need to find out how committed to Health & Safety the Management team are. If you can get their backing, the job is much easier. If not you will need a lot of influencing skills. Either way there may be some big, but rewarding challenges ahead. I was in a similar position a few years ago, albeit a different industry.
Jane Blunt  
#6 Posted : 01 June 2011 14:41:24(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
Jane Blunt

I would start by doing a tour of the premises, to talk to people and look at what they are doing. Ask them questions, is there something that concerns them? Are they doing anything that looks scary to you? Do they have any emergency procedures at all? Prioritise on things that you think need to be changed immediately, then in the background set about putting in a management system, introducing training, risk assessments, setting up a committee, etc. Try to influence someone on the Board, Sending someone to an outside trainer to do a one-day 'H&S for directors' can have quite dramatic effects. It can make it a lot easier for you to effect change.
chris.packham  
#7 Posted : 01 June 2011 16:19:17(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
chris.packham

If they really don't have anyting in place I would start with a basic health and safety policy and get senior management to sign up to this. At least then you should be able to get the support you need to get changes made. My experience is that unless there is a basic framework, i.e. a policy with open senior management support, you may well encounter resistance from middle management and possibly first line supervisors and workforce. Once you have the policy in place, then, as already suggested, take a look at past history. This might indicate where the most serious potential problems are to be found. Then what I would term a 'walk-though' survey of the workplace to get a general impression of what is going on. As this is a printing company I would certainly expect COSHH to feature quite highly in your immediate work, looking at exposure to printing inks, solvents, etc. I would take a bet that any gloves they have are the wrong ones! Chris
firesafety101  
#8 Posted : 01 June 2011 22:44:11(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
firesafety101

http://www.hse.gov.uk/si...-health-safety/index.htm This would be a good start, you can then build your blocks on top.
Bob Shillabeer  
#9 Posted : 01 June 2011 22:49:57(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
Bob Shillabeer

'If they really don't have anyting in place I would start with a basic health and safety policy and get senior management to sign up to this. At least then you should be able to get the support you need to get changes made. My experience is that unless there is a basic framework, i.e. a policy with open senior management support, you may well encounter resistance from middle management and possibly first line supervisors and workforce'. Chris, this is spot on mate. Get the top man on side and you can achieve a greater take up then just going into differnt procedures. The first and often the hardest bit is getting someone committed to doing something. Get the top man on board and the rest will follow, just like sheep really.
pete48  
#10 Posted : 01 June 2011 23:12:32(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
pete48

Kofi, you said "they do not have anything in place"?? I would want to quantify and qualify this before I did anything. Are we talking no documents or mgmt system? I think I would do something similar to Jane Blunts suggestion. Go look and find what they are doing on H&S. They must be doing something unless they are injuring or killing people every day! Maybe it is more a case that they do not understand what they are actually already doing on H&S. Your input is to be able to recognise what is H&S and build on that. For example, any training? any written procedures at all? what engineering controls and checks? ask employees what they do that keeps them safe etc etc. Then you can start to build the systems that we all know will be required but you do this by slotting current practice that you find into system documents. i.e tell it the way it is not how it should be. You can ask the senior person that you want to sign the policy questions about how they see safety and maybe you will be able to recognise elements of what you know needs to be in the policy doc and thus learn exactly where the boss is starting from. This approach often works better because you don't end up presenting a "well you have ALL this to do" report. It not only recognises what is currently good/OK but gives you a means to introduce a "the challenges on H&S and how we can get better plan". Reality is what you find but in my experience there is no such thing as a company with nothing in place. Good luck P48
rockybalboa  
#11 Posted : 02 June 2011 10:19:06(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
rockybalboa

I agree, set out a strategy, all H&S should link back to your policy document. 1. I would recommend setting up a basic H&S policy statement, organisation and basic arrangement statements. 2. Obtaining a good risk assessment form:- Start risk assessing and creating tasks following your risk assessments. Tie the tasks to peoples names then set a review date to see if they were carried out. (That which gets measured usually gets done) 3. Then over time improve on systems and make them more in depth if you can deliver what you write / get management backing etc. Just my 2cents to get the H&S started. lol oh dear, I think Ive just almost copied Smith24525 statement. Oh well, I agree with Smith >.<
A Kurdziel  
#12 Posted : 02 June 2011 11:12:54(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
A Kurdziel

I agree with Pete. It is difficult to imagine that they have nothing in place and simply setting up an H&S system cold will start you off on the wrong foot. So as suggested have a tour, show your face find out what people are doing and what they think they need to do- get a grip of the culture. Find out about accidents – surely they have an accident book? Then present your idea for a management system. Make it relevant for the place you are working. Present it as a gap analysis; tell them that they are doing some things right but just need to get the documentation/management issues sorted. Identify the most serious issues it may be COSHH it may be manual handling. Focus on these at first, half a dozen at most, and don’t get hung up on the trivia. It going to take time and will need both support from the top and from the shopfloor. Sell the advantages of a good H&S system. Make it clear it’s not really an end itself but just good management. Hopefully things will start to move but you will need to maintain the momentum, which is the hard bit; energy levels drop after a while and something else looms up which takes peoples’ attention from the H&S issues. A steady drip is more effective (I reckon) that a one off launch. Make sure that you give the impression that you actually care about the staff; that it’s not just a system for systems sake. Good Luck
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