Posted By Merv Newman Hi Heather, I've come across a number of these safety sites, most of them totally invisible and unused by anyone outside of the HSE group. Even the new safety manager of one large site could not show it to me. Didn't know the access route. At another site we spent weeks (paid !) translating the language, comments and help pages and plugging in French legislation to replace the OSHA stuff. But we were not allowed to touch any other functions so when local HSE took it over after days (paid !) of training they soon started to look on it as a chore. Something they had to do to keep the americans off their backs (chasing up lax HSE teams was a built in, automatic function, including sending e-mails to your boss !) So, whatever the purpose(s) you have in mind for your site, an important part of your design concept should be making it user friendly and ATTRACTIVE (ie rewarding) to potential users. Which will ensure that you are totally overworked in the future as you try to keep it up-to-date and interesting. Nuff said on the immediate perils. What do you want your site to do ; help, inform, guide, ease the daily life, allow input/output of work permits, risk assessments, method statements ... have easy reference to procedures and policies, COSHH info, sites of interest, centralising of reporting and statistics from a number of sites, sell those hand-knitted socks you are so justly famous for, record, score and report on audits, recording and follow-up of incidents and action plans .... ? I'd better stop now, I'm feeling faint.

Posted By Heather Aston Merv Yes I want it to do all those things - except the hand-knitted socks bit (you see I was reading your response properly!). I am aware of the danger of it becoming: a) Something that only 1% or less of the company ever look at (as our Intranet generally is at the moment), and b) A PITA for me to keep up to date. At least if I know the pitfalls I might be able to avoid them? :) Fiona I hadn't thought specifically of training material - might be useful, especially for refresher training information. I DO want to avoid it just being a list of legislation or a long list of subjects that no-one ever looks at - after all we all know how BORING health and safety is don't we? Thanks both for your thoughts. Any more? Heather

Posted By Jonathan Breeze Just to back up what Merv hinted at: Make sure all your staff know how to access the intranet. Many times I've alerted staff to policy changes which can be found on the intranet to have them tell me they can't/ don't know how to access it. (Training issue there I think!) Other than that your ideas sound great.

Posted By Simon Carrier Heather I am in the process of devolping our H&S intranet site. Yes it can be a PITA and it does take time for people to get used to it. But on the other hand, if set up with proper access for all, then it should ensure that all relevant information is available to those that need it when they need it, providing the PC does not crash!!

Posted By Heather Aston Merv Ours all run in the wee small hours. I'll give my IT dept a pat on the back then! Heather

Posted By Rich Hall One thing though - dont set up your super dooper intranet H&S system and sit back and think that youve done it all,. In my experience many staff members rarely read anything to do with Health and Safety and you cant rely on your intranet to send out the message. You must tackle them face to face. Preach to the unconvertable.

Posted By John Webster Don't try to get too fancy. Lots of simple, well laid out pages which open quickly works best. It also makes subsequent editing easier. Any photos should be small with "click on to enlarge". And try out your layout on a range of people. What seems like a logical way to navigate the site may be totally baffling to someone else. I too am about to do something within our intranet, just as soon as IT can update my old Win95 computer to handle the software our intranet uses! I am aware, however, that a significant proportion of our workforce, such as ancilliary, catering and domestic staff, does not regularly use computers at all (they can access equipment in the library - if they have time!). They are potentially amongst the most at risk and least informed, and therefore the intranet can never be the sole, nor even the most important, communication tool.

Posted By Jez Corfield Heather, Our whole H&S system is intranet based and includes pages on: Policy Guidance FAQ's Forms Sample Documents and Procedures 'ASK H&S' Query Box Links But I suspect it is accessed about as frequently as the previous paper based information - people go to it when they want to. The best way of getting people to look at H&S information is by doing 'features' on the front page, with links to the more 'traditional' H&S content. We did a feature week for H&S (H&S week) with a different article every day, which went down well. The features were written more in the style of web content or short articles rather than policy, but opened the eyes of staff to certain 'cherrypicked' topical H&S issues, and hopefully let them know the H&S intranet site was there. There is a huge gulf between having the intranet as library (easy), and using it to sell the H&S message. Can send a word version of the layout if needed. Jez