Posted By vincenzo Hi all, I am looking for advice on overcoming the difficulties involved in multiple site safety management, where the numbers of people are small outside of head office, e.g. a high street chain of banks, chemists, shops etc. difficulties such as ensuring (most importantly) the involvement of all levels of mgmt, and thus ensuring consistent high levels of health and safety mgmt across organisation. How do you overcome the 'distance' between head office and other sites. I think the key is to develop a positive Safety Culture within the organisation, via an effective SMS, but firstly to get senior mgmt on-board, and push it because they want to, whether they realise it or not. Apart from hypnotherapy, what are the techniques one could employ? e.g. tactful, but forceful persuasion techniques that get results. Am i wrong? What tips are out there? All advice and comments appreciated. Thanks Vincent

Posted By J Knight Hi Vincenzo, We have about 400 charity shops, most with one to one and a half employees. The biggest problem is communication, especially since the economics of the situation limit the likelihood of installing much in the way of IT. Things aren't too bad, but when things go wrong it can be all too easy for shop managers to claim that they have not had a particular memo or instruction. You must get this sorted out and robust; people need to sign for things and be chased if returns don't happen. Effective supervision is difficult, and this is exacerbated if a Business (i.e. area) Manager post is vacant; although managers will cover vacant patches, the level of oversight cannot be as good as it should be, and we have had some nasty scrapes with LA enforcers over things like access and egress because of this. So at a fundamental level speedy recruitment of effective managers is essential. One of the most effective things you can do is deliver on promises. If people don't feel that action will be taken when they have safety issues, they stop complaining, and this has also lead to system failure and nasty scrapes with LAs at a local level. On the whole its not easy, being compounded by the fact that training costs are higher than in a fixed base as there is always an additional travel element in getting people to a venue; you should be making effective use of existing meetings rather than planning new ones. We are using a strategy of formal training at Business and Divisional Manager level (Managing Safely, as it happens), and short focussed sessions at business meetings for shop managers. It helps that we have strong support from the Retail Director, and as I say we do reasonably well (having reduced reportable accidents by about 75% in two years) but if I have nightmares about any part of this charity its the shops that cause them, john