Dear All, Looking for any advice regarding the following three workplace Case Studies in the Education Sector. The ‘not interested’ scenario : 1. You are a newly appointed local safety adviser in a low risk area. The area has recently been the target of a HASMAP Audit, which showed that levels of Health & Safety management were poor to non existent. You suspect that this report is one of the reasons for your recent appointment to this post. The Head of School / Director has no interest in health & Safety, believes they have far more important things to do , and has asked you ‘just to get on with it’. Although the majority of the work in this area is considered low risk and office based, there are a number of activities that you consider have more significant risks attached to them (lone working / off campus working / workplacements). How might you influence the Head of School/Director to consider health and safety more seriously? The ‘unknown’ scenario : 2. You have held the post of a local safety adviser, in an engineering based school, for 4 years. There has recently been a new Head of School appointed who you have agreed to meet to discuss health and safety . Your previous HOS recognized the importance of H&S Management and their Leadership Role within this. This had lead to visible improvements in the way the School manages it’s H&S responsibilities. You have little knowledge of the newly appointed HOS apart from previous dealing with them during a previous School Inspection. This hadn’t gone particularly well; Documentation couldn’t be found, and there was a perceived lack of interest in H&S from both them and their research teams. How would you prepare for the meeting, assuming their ill be an element of negotiation involved? The ‘over zealous/ risk averse’ scenario : 3. You are a local safety adviser in a Directorate of the Professional Support Services. The work of this area is split between low risk office work and higher risk operations linked with working at height, work on electrical systems and use of hand held power tools. Your Director has recently attended a Senior Health & Safety Briefing, which highlighted what their role and responsibilities were. Since then they have become very focussed on eradicating all risk from operations, and as a consequence have stopped a number of daily operations, and asked you to compile risk assessments for all activities and arrange training for all members of staff. How would you encourage the Director to take a more balanced view? What influencing techniques and negotiation strategies might be useful?

These are very big questions; if you outline your current thinnking we might be able to help you refelct and sharpen up? John

No Walker, it's not homework !The case studies were presented for discussion at a H&S event and i would welcome any input from IOSH members. My thinking for all 3 case studies is firstly to establish a relationship with the manager and find out what kind of person they are - analytical driver amiable or expressive http://www.ucd.ie/t4cms/...onality%20Categories.pdf This determines the best way to influence them. For scenario 1 my thoughts are to point out the consequences of an accident based around the foundations of H&S i.e. legal moral financial Scenario 3 is the opposite of scenario 1 and may be resolved reference to "reasonably practicable" - balancing the level of risk against the resources needed to control it. Still thinking about number 2, but business continuity seems to be a convincing argument, also pointing out that H&S performance is a performance indicator.

Thanks Toe, that's useful info. The scenarios as described involve building a relationship with a senior manager, but the points regarding corporate homocide and accountability are valid. A.