If I have had a conversation with a senior manager I always then e-mail them reiterating the conversation and asking for the outcome.

I think that we will all have been in that situation at times; some more than others. And I would agree with others in ensuring that you can evidence your advice or whatever.

However, something else does strike me. We obviously have no indication of your level of experience, and I am sure that if we were honest, we would mostly accept that in the earlier days of our careers we were all rather more ‘gung ho’, basing our advice on what we have learnt and gained from our NEBOSH courses which inevitably deal with strict compliance with the law and little to do with the realities of working life. As time goes by and you gain experience I have found that I now tend to temper my advice, I apply risk management principles and consider the business impact that my advice might have; these are the things that NEBOSH didn’t teach me. I might also provide justification for the approach and/or the pros and cons of alternatives.

If a manager doesn’t take your advice, they may (or may not) have their own reasons for not doing so, but it would be helpful if they told you why. Some do and some don’t. Some have some sensible justification (see above), some don’t. I for one have had to eat some humble pie (particularly in my earlier years) along the way.

So. Maybe look again at your advice. Is it reasonable? Is it sensible? Does it manage the risk? Have you considered alternatives that would reduce the business impact (cost, time, trouble etc.). Learn to compromise, don’t become entrenched. You will find that your ability to communicate your advice is potentially more important than the advice itself.

Good luck.

Good points from canopener, I have certainly been along those paths. As experience grew and communications skills improved mutual respect has developed and, with my main customer, we never get into 'arguments'.

When I know my advice is correct :o) I take appropriate steps to record this. My main customer is ISO18001 accred so all work areas have been risk-assessed and documented and luckily I am in control of risk assessment reviews and document updates. So any advice that is not taken on board is entered into the RA documentation as a review comment, dated and signed (hopefully).

For equipment, if there was an issue with that RA review/record, I can fall back on the documented PUWER assessment, which I can amend/review without their signatures. Recently there was a refusal to fit guards to milling machines. This had been documented in the PUWER assessments and when an inspector took interest and issued an IN I knew I was covered.

There are two other communication tools I use. One is a Guidance Note, this is basically a letter in word.doc that is sent to interested parties and filed and will explain any changes in regs, new PPE, or explain any misunderstandings about regs e.g. WAH, asbestos, legionella, fire doors were recent things that needed explaining.

Then there's the Advisory Note, also a 'letter'. This is a straightforward notification that I/we are aware that there's an area where non-compliance has occurred and that I'm keen that we take action e.g. recent subjects were provision of a pedestrian crossing on site, and concerns about FLTs on a public road.

Put the advice in writing, but in a respectful way of course.

My job is to provide advice and the Managers job is to manage. I am not trying to Manage and I am not asking them to provide the advice.

If I thought not following the advice was SERIOUS enough then I would either go higher up the management chain or else read the Law Poster. But generally I would take advice from my peers before I took the more serious approach, providing there was time of course, just to be sure that I was being objective and reasonable.

At times H&S is a very challenging job, as we all know. Try to remain objective and reasonable and you will find the right solution in the end.

Regards.

Kieran

It's interesting that you think that I am trying to 'exercise power'.

As an ADVISOR the role is to advise (as westonphil put very well). I always make it clear when I offer advice that at the end of it all the decision will always lie with the manger. They are aware of that. I also make a point to listen to their reasoning for not wanting to follow advice. This comes down to some communication skill (something I am sure the power trekkers out there lack...) asking why they don't want to do it that way to understand their reasons and to ensure that they are properly informed. The manner in which these conversations are held is, of course, of paramount importance.

The reason for this post, as I originally put, is to find best practice to protect our professional integrity as H&S practitioners. As I am sure we are all aware the HSWA defines offences due to the fault of others and as such advisors/officers (in other words, us) can be held liable. This post was about protecting ourselves when the decision makers make a decision going against the advise. This is something that most people have picked up on (with the writing down / emailing - I particularly liked JohnW's methods which will be 'borrowed'!).

It is concerning that some people jump to the exercise power /power trek argument assuming I do not know how to communicate. Now I understand that this is the danger of forums, some people make (incorrect) assumptions as they do not have the whole information. But it concerns me somewhat that people have had the experiences with H&S that have lead this to be their default pattern of thought. Again, I understand this may not be their fault and may not even be conscious of making those decisions but I find it interesting nonetheless.

Perhaps this is going to morph into a different topic, but before it does thanks to those who have offered advice on what was asked, it has been very very helpful.

Kieran

It appears that I have misread your last line of your first post. When reading: 'Trying to exercise power is rarely more effective than developing understanding of motives and emotions.', I understood you to mean that I was trying to exercise my own power (meaning the power of being qualified in H&S and having a higher level of competence than the manager in question) rather than developing understanding through communication.

From your second post I can see how you may have meant that the manager is trying to exercise their power as opposed to understanding the motives and emotions of me as the advisor. If this is the case, then please accept my apologies I meant no offence but felt it necessary to defend what I was saying! It can be easily to misinterpret what is posted through the digital medium.

I think the statement you have made may be true in that case, but there is not a great deal that can be done in the short term. Over time though I believe that developing a good relationship with that manager and building a mutual respect may change their attitude towards H&S. It is attitudes from managers that you have pointed that may be the root cause of the issue here, which is obviously useful to understand. However I really wanted to talk about what happens immediately after your advice has been disregarded. I think the point you have raise, Kieran, is a great one for a longer term plan however.

I suppose it depends on the degree of risk associated with advice. In the past I have had many occasions where my advice was not followed or only part of it. I generally don't feel the need to keep a record as evidence. In any case, there is usually a trail of emails or documentation if evidence was needed. I don't think we should get to paranoid or defensive about this - it goes with the territory.

I see my role as providing advice, solutions, educating, mentoring and cajoling. If something was to go pear shaped I would point them in the direction of the person who did not do what they were advised to do.

I must be reading this wrong!
The story tells me that despite your expert coaching, the company crashed & burned bigtime.

H&S is an important part of a company culture, but it is a 'part'. Generally the name calling and fighting is not just limited to the H&S professional and is often an indication of the company culture which operates on the relevant site. Delivering a better culture has to be led from the top but often that is where the weaknesses are because the top often mean everyone but them even though they may talk the talk.

Many years ago I worked for one of the largest and most advanced companies in the world and they went through a culture change program; the CEO at the top demonstrated how he would change himself and his top team and so led from the top/front. It was a very successful culture change program, which begs the question well why did I leave :-) but alas that was for other reasons. I remember years later meeting the MD of my local site and he said "I learned something about humility in that culture change program and where I had to make personal/professional improvements and gained a lot from it". That is one company I have worked for in many years where I never heard a person name call another or else fight with another, albeit I can only speak for my local site and would think it certain it did happen at times within the company as a whole.

Often the H&S Professional is just advising/coaching on H&S and not the overall culture of a company, for obvious reasons, but sometimes we need to fix the environment so that people have the possibility to work correctly; they do not generally start off name calling or else fighting and instead get there because those appear to be the only tools left after exhausting other methods.

However that is not to be critical of your point or else to suggest anything either way and rather I am just adding a bit more to the discussion, for the sake of discussion. :-) The Chinese owner may have closed the business for quite a number of reasons and yet these reasons would not neccessarily have been made public.

Those who 'often scorn the H&S Professional' are themselves 'blaming others' and which in itself makes the point it is often a part of the company culture.

Regards

I come at it from a different angle KieranD.

If the American-Chinese owner did as you stated 'putting a stop to the squabbling - and to the livlihoods of many' rather than instead just terminate the underperforming EHS manager then I would suggest that supports my point there were significant cultural issues in the company and they were likely the primary cause of the issues. I cannot think of to many well managed companies who get themselves into that type of position whereby they stop the livlihoods of many instead of removing the underperforming person from their position.

As there are reasons for your criticisms of the EHS Manager there were reasons for the EHS Manager taking the approach they did. I would suggest that if you as a reasonable and professional person understood the reasons and yet were unable to bring about an improvement with your good guidance and coaching then it would be time to take the relevant person through the company procedures which would ultimately move them out of the company, after all it is why companies have such procedures. If however there was no reasonable attempt to correct the person and then move them through the company procedures when no improvement was forthcoming then that is a failure of management.

Going by what you say, it's a shame all round!

Regards.