Sean, I can see your dilemma.
Managers et all issue instruction or give approvals based on an expectation that their staff will do that work efficiency, effectively and safely. That, after all, is what most company policies on any subject require of managers and employees. The reality of that expectation, however, ranges from total confidence to total assumption.
So to illustrate one of the difficulties, we could simply categorise people into 3 groups.
1. People who know how to carry out a task properly, understand the dangers and their controls and consistently and rigorously apply those controls.
2. People as above but who choose, or feel compelled to choose, methods which use lesser controls because it enables them to get the job done.
3. People who do not know how to do the job properly, do not understand the dangers or the controls and therefore take unnecessary risks. (n.b. unnecessary is stressed in this sentence.)
People who work in offices would probably fall within group 3 with regard to WAH. There is no need for them to have received any formal information about low level falls. They may have some personal experience, indeed as some would have us believe we may all have it as a life skill, we may not. If this potential for loss had been recognised by the manager then maybe some specific checks and balances would have been helpful and prevented exposure to unnecessary risk. (e.g. OK but use the mtce crew to put it up or make sure we use the steps etc)
In my opinion, there is no difference between the person in the factory using an oil drum to stand on and someone in the office climbing onto a desk. One might argue the semantics of stability to the nth degree but it is the same outcome, unnecessary risk. The fact that either event occurs demonstrates an unacceptable culture or approach to managing H&S in the workplace and a potential gap between the manager’s expectation of his staff and reality.
Let’s return now to the practicality of hanging the bunting and the accusation of “cotton wool professionals”.
So what is the proper method to access the ceiling? Why--it is steps or other temporary access platforms. So what is the proper way to do the job? Access those parts of the ceiling which are possible using access kit and hang the bunting from those points. We have the job done without unnecessary and/or additional risk.
Ah but, they say, we want to hang them from above Pete’s desk. OK, so can we assume that desk is a safe working platform? No, because that is not what it is designed for. Could it be a safe working platform? Yes, of course it could but not without some forethought and one or two simple checks. And that is the crux for me; not the technicalities of whether it could but whether the people deciding to use it would even stop to think. Thus we introduce unnecessary risks! On the other hand we may have employees who are capable of making those quick mental assessments but even then they should still be asking themselves ‘is it worth the risk’ for bit of bunting. If they don’t do this then we get back to situations where we will have unnecessary risks in our business.
I keep a copy of an accident report in my records to remind me that, despite many years in high risk sectors, I must never allow myself to be drawn into the “it doesn’t matter, it is not a significant risk” frame of mind. It is not just the significance of a risk but whether it is necessary to be exposed to the risk that is important.
The simple details of the accident were that a female employee, who had osteoporosis, had climbed onto her desk in stockinged feet in order to hang an Xmas decoration. The desk partially collapsed due to a damaged longitudinal strut in the frame. She had taken her shoes off to avoid “getting the desk top dirty” so she slipped badly as the desk moved, she fell and broke her leg. She was off work for 6 months. It was the most significant accident, in terms of lost time, in the company for 5 years.
p48