...doing h&s inspections/site tours?

As opposed to burying your head in your laptop or desktop, meetings, answering your mobile, sending texts, responding or writing emails, etc. Maybe you have not really given it much thought, but I bet when you analyse it is much less than you think.

Ray

johnmc I couldn't agree more.

Rgds

Brett

I should have also said that I totally agree with John that it is important to try to break down the negativity of the workers towards H&S and that can only come by talking with them and getting them involved.

If possible H&S bods should spend as much time with the most senior management team as they can in whatever situation from golf to policy meetings as its only by continually having a presence with decision makers that H&S slowly becomes an embedded part of management noting that bottom up is only one way and if the top people have no buy in then its a waste of time - by being 'one of them' you become an accepted and thereafter H&S has a chance of becoming an accepted norm

I'm in the same boat, Ray. I spend about 60% of my time in my own office, 25% elsewhere but not inspections / tours / etc and only about 10% on front-line h&s. Not sure what I do for the other few %...

Three years' ago I was doing 120+ inspections / audits / etc per year, but recently it's down to less than thirty as we've taken the time to rebuild a very old h&s system from the ground up. At least this is helping us improve the quality of the proactive stuff, but I'd like to have the time to get out and talk to people more.

Having said that, we've worked with our senior managers to bring the inspections their staff do more closely aligned with ours (getting them to visit each others' areas, etc) which has multiplied the usefulness of what goes on.

Personally, I'd say about <5% but I think it depends on where you are in building a safety structure within a business. I changed employers recently and there's a lot to do to even get the basics in place from a strategic perspective. In contrary, where I was previously I had more time available as I'd already done these things.

I echo the previous post on having safety reps. These are invaluable and I always look to install such a position even in non-union environments. You give ownership of the issues to the people as well as having ears and eyes on the shop floor at the same time.

....if I'm ever in a bad mood on here, is any wonder!! ;-)

In 9 depots and 3 office locations I conducted 2 annual safey audits and monthly depot observation reports. These all were done as a means of gauging the effectivness of our safety rules/initiatives, assisting the depot safety reps and engaging with the people who were most at risk. In that role it was both appropriate and a company requirement. I might add, the safety reps have a daily diary they are required to keep and for each workday there is a diary task which could be anything from walking the fire routes to checking the PAT testing has been done on a number of items so this also reduced the need for me to actually conduct site inspections.

Earlier in the thread I said it depends on the job what amount of contact is possible, well I think it also depends on the job as to what amount of time is appropriate or needed.

If you sit behind a desk all day then you will never be able to make changes and a difference , you safety culture will be poor and no accidents/incidents near misses etc will be reported. Is that what you want for your workforce ?

About 10% - 20%, maybe as low as 5%.....

But surely it all depends on the structure and size of the organisation you work in?

My view is that unless you have a team approach with different people at different levels doing some quite specific tasks, every H&S bod should spend some time on the shop floor. If you are a trying to influence leaders to take more of an interest then taking them (or pushing them) on leadership tours is a good idea, at a lower level going around with managers who themselves might not get onto the shopfloor that often is also good.

At all levels being visible and accessible to the workforce is a good idea.

I've met H&S managers who don't get out and about and its very easy for them to lose track of whats happening in their own businesses and think that health and safety is all about paperwork and writing policies etc, it plays a part, but as an excellent line manager of mine once said about safety "keep your eye on the ball, not on the scoreboard"

Arguably in a one site business a weekly 'casual' walk around/inspection for 20 minutes would be fine, and that might make up 1% of the working week!

Do any forum users have experience of or know of OS&H professionals paying joint visits with senior managers/bosses to workplaces and sites in order to see/hear/discuss with employees and line managers what happens on the 'shop floor' or 'front line'? If so, how were the bosses persuaded to pay such visits? Did the bosses think such visits were useful? (asking for more joint visits is a good indication!) Did such visits help to improve the bosses' perceptions/understanding of OS&H and lead to positive improvements? Also, did the visits have any positive effects on employees and their line managers?

For those in organisations where such visits are unknown, do you think it might be worthwhile trying to encourage such visits? Due thought, tact and care would need to be given about who should encourage which boss and with what reasons. For example, an opportunity to see what really happens as opposed to what the boss thinks happens, a chance to be better informed than other senior bosses, a chance also to see how improvements can be made regarding business efficiency, standard of service, etc. Bosses are busy people so it might be best, in the first instance at least, to propose a relatively brief visit or concentrate on a relatively finite area of work, perhaps with one or more significant issues about which senior bosses ought to be aware and making decisions. A joint visit could be posed as an easier/quicker/more efficient way for a senior boss to be told about and understand significant OS&H issues rather than simply read reports and e-mails, etc.

The worst that can happen presumably is for a senior boss to politely decline the suggestion of a joint visit. However, he or she might later have a re-think about such a suggestion and change their mind or suggest that another senior colleague gets involved. Another possibility is that a senior boss might say yes, perhaps because the suggestion strikes them as novel, audacious and/or worth a go.

Ray. The above questions and thoughts might appear to be a digression from the theme of your thread. However, they're intended to provoke a development of the thread through constructive discussion and advice about how OS&H professionals with finite time and facing competing demands might become both more effective and more influential in their work.

I probably spend 50% of my time auditing /inspecting, 15 % driving to different sites, 20% writing up reports and lists of things to do (for Local managers) and 35% other paperwork and organising things. The parts above 100% are free evening and weekend work.

The 50% auditing does include talking to both the managers and other employees, both taking an interest in what they are doing and explaining reasoning for certain H&S issues at a local level. I also encourage them to feedback issues to me (and ensure I look into them and get back with an answer positive or negative). I have built up a reasonably good working relationship because of this with the local management, taking time to explain things and take them through everything from LOLER / PUWER inspection reports, to understanding waste paperwork. The company higher up feel everything is ok in their world and only needs policing – which is sadly not the case.

A previous position the MD ( and other Directors and Managers) would walk around with me every 6 weeks, for quite a few hours and look at everything SHEQ. The MD knew the names of every employee (all 240+). The walk about was an excellent opportunity to discuss issues as we went, and plan where we wanted to be. Because it was not production related it sent a powerful message (IMHO) to all employees. Not so where I am now unfortunately. The last thing anyone at the sharp end wants to see is the MD. The approaches are very different and as you would expect, so is the outcome (Openness V’s Fear).

Interestingly in my previous role my time was spend more as Kate described, so time inspecting was more in the region of 5%.

Graham, yes I did always have the General Managers and when possible the Regional Directors accompany me on depot walkarounds. It was a positive experience for them because they could get a snapshot of where their depots were at as far as housekeeping went and what good and bad work practices looked like.
I didn't need to persuade them too much because it was approached as if it was an expected norm. It helped of course that the company bonus structure included needing a 90% or better safety audit score and 3 of those marks were dependent on the outcomes of the monthly observation reports.

I work three days a week and am normally out the office one of these each week (either delivering training, doing risk assessments for staff or attending meetings at other locations where I normally have an informal chat as well about any H&S issues).

Having said that, this week I'm in the office for the 3 days (but am out twice next week...though one of them is the staff lunch so doesn't really count!). Then that's me till the 6th January - whoooohoooo!

Really?