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Is there an acceptable number of Health & Safety 'managers' for a given number of employees ?
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Posted By srd
For a company group consisting of 4 manufacturing plants with offices, 1 assembly plant with office, and 10 small offices, employing in total around 1,500 employees, would you consider that one 'Health and Safety Manager' based at one of the manufacturing plants is sufficient?
What if the H&S Manager additionally has another unrelated role at the same plant, effectively making his H&S role part-time?
I've tried in vain to find any HSE guidance on this.
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Posted By Rakesh Maharaj
Dear srd
It is unlikely that you will find any published material to help you with this problem. My advice will be to use your benchmarking audits for all sites to extract compliance/improvement plans (of course reactive monitoring stats will also assist to an extent - but this is usually underpins and/or reflects a fire fighting culture within your organisation).
The content of such plans will in effect determine the degree and scope of work required across your sites. Resource required to fulfil the company's objectives against the scope(s) will determine the number of competent persons required. Your plans will also guide you in determining the dynamics of such appointments e.g. full time, part time, direct employees or consultants.
I hope this helps.
Regards
Rakesh
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Posted By Paul Adams
You've got your work cut out. We have 220 employees and 2 H&S competent persons. Mind you, we look after Environment & Quality as well.
Good luck.
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Posted By srd
Thanks both.
I remember looking at a web page some months ago where they included results of a questionaire sent out to H&S people in various companies. One of the questions related to the number of H&S 'managers' per given number of employees, but can I find the page again!
Stephen.
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Posted By J Knight
We have 2 for 2,500. We are relatively low risk, having Hospices (treated by CSCI & HSE as Hospitals, only smaller), Neurological Care Centres, 450 Homecare workers, Charity Shops, two office suites, oh yes, and a medium sized warehouse; the latter is not so low risk. One of us is dedicated to Retail, leaving me to service the rest, and since I dotted-line manage the Retail bod I have some responsibility for Retail as well. We also between us do Environment (me) and DDA and Trading Standards (him). Do we feel under-resourced? Yes, but there you go,
John
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Posted By jackw.
Hi not sure you will ever get a definitive or even guesstemate answer for this. My own experience I was what was laughingly called "re-deployed" into an H&S post. In an LA Social work department. No prior experience or qualification. Straight into the diploma course at local uni. Department has 4000 staff (1800 lone workers),, home helps, social workers day care, residential care, OT, office etc etc. A range of offices, day centres, residential homes, special projects including a sheltered furniture manufacturing unit employing 30, a garage project for deviant youths, a recycle project repairing furniture etc. I ran ragged worked all sorts of hours for 2 years, managed to contract a serious illness and went off for 3 months came back and found work piled up in folders that no one dealt with.. told my boss no more extra hours. “Luckily” the HSE came along and did a 3 day audit of the department..made it clear to senior managers that their view not a 1 man job..3 of us now. Life is a bit easier. Never found out “who” contacted the HSE and suggested an in-depth look at the dep’t should be considered. But I am sure you get the “drift” hope this helps
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Posted By Frank Hallett
Yes, there is.
In one context, it's the number that is required to ensure that all staff work to the employers H&S standards.
In the other context, it's the number that is sufficient to ensure that the employer can demonstrate compliance with that boring ol' MHSW Reg 7.
Frank Hallett
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Posted By Bill Fisher
Frank
I'm afraid I disagree with you in that it is supervision and management's role "to ensure that all staff work to the employers H&S standards." not the Safety Advisor(s).
I would start by doing the Risk Assessment and identifying the forseeable hazards. From that decide how you will manage/control those hazards - you may put a significant amount of effort into training your managers and supervisors thus reducing Advisory support. Or you may decide that the emphasis is on support, but keep in mind your managers and supervisors will need enough knowledge to manage and supervise.
Bill
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Posted By Merv Newman
My experience (and recommendations) is that on a manufacturing site (non-safety-critical industry) one fully competent person per 500 employees can do the job. Once you have that competent person then lower levels (H&S technicians) can be added, again at about one per five hundred. For multi-sites where a lot of travelling is required then the "dead" time needs to be taken into acccount. ex : two sites 1 000 miles apart and the competent person can only visit maybe once per week so a technician per site would be required to cover.
Rules of thumbs,with lots of variables.
Last word : if you reallyreallyreally believe that you are underfunded and/or understaffed, despite your manifest and multiple competencies, then part of your job is to argue for adequate resources. Go kick ass somewhere. Or somewhere else.
Actually, it does look as if you have a tricky job with lots of difficulties. You could try drawing up an action plan, not just justifying extra staff (looked upon as empire building) but showing how that extra person can work with you to put in the systems/training/whatever more effectively than one person alone and thus save your company millions of euros (think european, please) and make your direct boss next candidate for MD.
Enjoy, it's Friday. Weekend at home then back to the white van factory. FunFunFu....
Merv
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Posted By Frank Hallett
Evening again alll - the barby is taking time, it's going to rain and I got bored; sad!
Bill, srd only asked about H&S Managers and I only responded to the title of "manager".
I do agree that whether the H&S Advisor has an executive role is extremely important; but that wasn't the question as I read it.
Perhaps srd would be kind enough to feed us a little more info to set us on a response path more focussed on their particular situation?
Frank Hallett
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Posted By srd
Thanks Karen, that was the site I was looking for.
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Is there an acceptable number of Health & Safety 'managers' for a given number of employees ?
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