Was speaking to a Health and Safety Consultant today. He showed me the H&S Manual he would create for any required Company. Example, Lone Working, had a page about the Policy on Lone Working, then another Page or 2, which was a flow graph on the Procedure for Lone Working....Now, looking at current Companies H&S Manual, some of the Procdures run into countless pages (43 for Emergency Evacuation)....Obviously you ensure all relevant information is detailed, but do Companies some times 'over kill' on content???....The Consultant told me, his experience, make it straight forward, specific and right to the point

We got rid of the ‘manual’ and put everything up on the intranet via a document control programme (Workbench). All the information was there, it was just divvied up into bite size pieces. I did not expect people to learn the whole thing or anything like that; just to look at the bits relevant to their work. Furthermore the actual risk assessment process was down to teams so they had ownership of the documents etc.

For a small to medium business doing something fairly straight forward (and in particular standard with little variation) a 30 pager should be enough. At my last place we did a huge variety of things both on site and off site, so we had pages of stuff covering all of the contingencies.

In my experience having worked as a Senior Manager and Consultant "simple" works best. However, regulators and Insurers (and their auditors) seem to be easily bought off, if not mesmerised by "quantity" of documentation rather than the "quality". This maybe a reflection of their own lack of experience? I have however come across some of these people however who went straight to the heart of the matter, and required uncomplicated and effective risk controls. They were generally what I would call "mature" auditors who had seen a bit of battle and blood spilt...........

haha I'm pretty sure it wasn't yourself. Unless you go under a few different names

When I worked as a CDM Coordinator. The best H&S Files, where usually the smallest in quantity, but was simply straight to the point. Seen a few for small projects, that ran into a dozen different files...I always think simplicity is key. Simply because, before I became a Health and Safety Professional, I worked for a Manufacturing Company, who's Senior Manager had a Safety Manual with Procedures wrote by Shakespeare. After a Health & Safety Advisor joined, it was put into clear and readable format. This is what got my interest in the Health and Safety profession

Quote from Mark Twain (but has been attributed to others)

“I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”

My opinion is that most companies cannot be bothered to think about what they really need to write in their policies, procedures etc. so they take the lazy route of trying to cover everything. The problem is that it makes it difficult to find the information that is needed, and people quickly give up trying.

I have a rule of thumb (no science behind it). 20% of the workforce will not read anything you give them. They get by because their colleagues tell them the important bits. The remaining 80% will read the first page. Only 80% of these will read page 2, and only 80% of these will read page 3. On this basis, less than 50% will read page 4. The important message here is to keep documents as short as possible, and make sure the most important information is on page 1.

What is more worrying for me is that having studied company paperwork many times, it is usually the most critical activities that are missed. It seems that companies set out on their plan to document everything, but start with the easy stuff. They never actually get around to documenting the most important stuff. Much better to prioritise so that you at least start with the most important, then you know if you don't get everything done that it is the less important stuff that gets missed.

Finally, it seems to me that documents on the intranet often makes it worse. It quickly becomes a dumping ground for every type of document. The stock answer when asking where information can be found is "its on the intranet." The reality is no one knows for sure if it is or not; and they don't know how to find it.

Hi all
I was recently asked to review the health and safety policy of a Company I was doing some work for. So on my desk arrived a 200 page plus glossy folder that the Company in question were extremely proud of.
Now we all at times indulge in a bit of plagiarism but tend to remove the company name that the document was originally compiled for and adapt it to our specific needs. But to leave the original company name on that document and don't alter it it any way at all is unforgivably. Obviously no one read the 200 pages of pure unaltered plagiarism at all, if they had they would have noticed that the majority of the policy's and procedures had just been lifted off the internet.
It even included a fire evacuation procedure for a well known fast food outlet.
So its not quantity that matters is quality and in most cases site specific.
Rant over

Plaigiarism! Would you call copying information from the HSE website Plaigariarism?

I recently went onto their website looking for work at height guidance and their suggested risk assessment is very brief so I copied most of it.

If it is good enough for them it is good enough for me and I wouldn't wish to reinvent their wheel.

WAH risk assessment on one page in the 5 steps format.

Ha, everyone has copied a document or a section at some time or other. Even reviewing another document as an example could be technically plagiarism unless you referenced it. As for the HSE website, I believe there is a caveat that documents can be copied or reproduced without any copyright infringement - which makes perfect sense.

Crack on.

What about ISO 18001, 14001, 9001, etc for a huge expanse of paper as well?
Regards
Mike