I wonder if anyone on this forum has introduced penalty points for rule violations at work similar to the concept below? Operative (3pts) Supervisor (2pts) Manager (1pt). The idea is to ensure where someone is working with supervision, the supervisor should be aware of any potential violation - for example, not wearing full PPE. Therefore it's only fair and just the supervisor should share the burden. Likewise managers should instill in their supervisors the need to be proactive, provide good briefings etc and to ensure that supervisors are diligently carrying out their tasks. Interested in your views? Ray

Bob, I would like to...but they won't stretch that far ;)

Good shout Merv if you can get the buy in.

Don't think it would work and will only turn H&S into police "traps". There's no way to be consistent in the application. People will feel that they are being victimised, or picked on? Is there a limit where they get disciplined/fired? Also the weighting of points, as has been pointed out above, is sending out the wrong message. Mick

Thanks for your comments so far. Whilst we all know the responsibility stops with senior management it's not practical in large organisations to make all the directors accountable for all violations. Before we dismiss the notion of apportioning points I think proper consideration should be given to site safety and compliance, particularly where there are repeat incidents by certain individuals. The point scoring should focus the minds on those who are committing the offences as well as those who are supervising and managing the work. Indeed, in practice we do actually provide sanctions by either warning people or in extreme cases removing them from site as well as reminding supervisory staff to be more vigilant etc. If anything, managers are often too remote from the offence...but here is the opportunity to get their buy in. I agree the points system could alienate some, but those who perform their work diligently by providing good briefings, monitoring, supervision of work, etc, have nothing to worry about.

“Whilst we all know the responsibility stops with senior management it's not practical in large organisations to make all the directors accountable for all violations.” Sorry I think that responsibility does rest with the senior managers. I have often come across where the local managers don’t do things they should be doing because they believe that they will not be supported by senior managers if they spend money on H&S and related stuff. That is the responsibility of senior management and they must be held accountable for EVERYTHING that happens in an organisation.

I have used something very similar what I have done in the past if there was a violation of safety management systems the person in question would receive a verbal warning and his line manager would receive an email stating if this happens again the line manager would have to attend a meeting to review and discuss a way forward with his employee who failed to follow the safety management system, in turn at this meeting the line manager would be told if there is any more breaches of the safety management system then his senior manager would be called to a meeting to explain how his line manager is failing to manage the workforce when you get to this level of management the problem will be solved as the last thing the senior manager wants is to attend a meeting with his director I believe in having a fair and just culture where everybody knows whets expected of them and complies with your procedures you have in place , as having a no blame culture no one takes Responsibility as there is no consequences chris

Much of what is being said here seems to justify the Unions opinion of Behavioural safety. i.e its just a excuse to blame the workers. I have sympathy for that view. All events, where I have responsibilities, have to be fully investigated and reported, usually by the line manager. I require detailed root cause analysis. Any cause that "blames the operative" will usually result in me investigating a management root cause.

If you are intent on this perhaps the score should be :- Operative (1pt) Supervisor (1pt) Manager (1pt). Reasoning would be each supervisor has a number of subordinates so if it is systemic then each operative would get a point, but the supervisor would gain a few in total. This also works for the next level up as well. However who will be the one giving out the points ? As Managers and Supervisors may be reluctant to snitch on one another. So would that just be you ? Then they will start hiding things, as in this instance points do not make prizes. Not sure it is a good idea. Just my opinion for what it's worth Chris

Chris, a tiered structure makes more sense to me, otherwise doing a like for like point would mean that supervisors and managers would get a disproportionate amount of points and they could become meaningless. I agree for any system like this to work there must be good support from all those participating it and driven from the top in order to ensure incidents are not covered up. A fair and just culture is at the heart of the intervention. It's not just about hitting people over the head, but encouraging good behaviour and performance. For example, a league table between different disciplines on site could be used positively by rewarding good performance as opposed to penalising poor performance. Site violations need not necessarily be just PPE, it could be any number of site rule breaches. Whilst the general feeling is against this type of intervention it would be interesting if a senior manager asked you to reduce site violations what would you do? I suspect the usual site briefings, TBTs, training, etc. All well and good...but not very effective IMO.