The company I work for has a Building Manager who knows nothing about H&S, is not in my management chain and comes to me for H&S advice. Are you suggesting that he shouldn't because I am JUST a H&S coordinator!

In my experience, no. A senior manager of some description needs to champion H&S and set the scene for the organisation as a whole, but it does not have to be the Facilities Manager. All managers have to take responsibility for ensuring the safe work of their sections so, unless it is a very small organisation, there are lots of people with management responsibility for safety.

Managers need to know, find out, or take advice on the aspects of safety that they need in order to discharge their responsibility.

I have not worked in an organisation where the Faciliies manager was responsible for all H&S.

I cover HSE and Facilities, however when you look for Facilities Roles most do ask for H&S Experience as the two do tend to go hand in hand. Could always sneak a peek at the old job description (if there is one) and see what that states.

Most managerial roles these days requires some degree of h&s knowledge and responsibility. It does of course depend on the role and the management set up, although it never ceases to amaze how little some managers actually do know about h&s. You would think that in construction type activities project supervisors and managers would at least have a working knowledge of CDM...but not always the case.

When I took up my present position (over 8 years ago) I first worked directly to the CEO. On a change of Finance Director some 4 years ago he became my manager. On a Finance/Admin re-org the HR became my manager. On a recent re-org of Maintenance and Development the Maintenance Manager became my new boss.

After saying all that I don't care who my manager is seeing as I cover every aspect of health and safety in the company.

Rich

Well it goes without saying it’s in the title FM “manage the facilities” – H&S is part of the responsibilities they have, and not a bolt on. One of the main reasons for having facilities management is to comply with H&S legislation, such as welfare, electricity at work, legionella, WAH, etc. etc. It also depends on size of organisation, culture and appetite for compliance. I’ve known FM who have no experience in H&S and little in FM, great at counting beans though!! Would I employee them – well maybe as an accountant!! FM’s at any level should have competencies to do their job at least NEBOSH General even if they are a large organisation with their own visiting or embedded HSE professional supporting the FM team.

I disagree.

H&S is not part of FM. FM is part of H&S. While that could be dismissed as clever word play, I don't think it is, really - the facilities are managed to ensure that they maximise productivity and provide a safe, healthy environment. The management of facilities is not an end in itself, it's purpose is to satisfy (among other things) health and safety requirements.

That is to say, it is subsidiary to H&S, not encompassing H&S.

We have a 'Facilities Manager' at our head office but he's not part of 'management' - managing the facilities is not the same as managing a department of people, and he's not a director. Conversely, we have two directors nominated with particular responsibility for safety (one covers head office, one everywhere else). The FM reports to the directors.

I'm the H&S supervisor for our little firm. We have installation teams of electricians, a team of electrical engineers and technicians who carry out our servicing contracts, office staff and contractors.

My roll is to work with all management and staff whatever their position within the company. I have overall responsibility of the offices and workshop (light engineering - control panels etc.)

I'm not sure if that would qualify me as some sort of facilities manager or not but as far as I can see as Hillary says, quite rightly in my humble opinion, 'I too am a health and safety practitioner first and foremost who is responsible for facilities' :-)