Posted By Paul Devlin Its should already be part of your conduct code. Any failure to comply with a health and safety rule or instruction in the organisation should be dealt with as gross misconduct and the person dealt with accordingly. You'll find anyone sacked after refusing to obey such a directive will get short thrift if they try and claim unfair dismissal.

Posted By TONY I had a similar incident when i worked for a blue chip company. The Director refused to leave his office the way i dealt with ot was to draft a formal letter to the Managing Director stating that if this happended in a real fire he would go to Jail. Message was understood then and the Director got a severe telling off. Good luck

Posted By Lilian McCartney All places I've worked the Fire Wardens ask the people who are not evacuating if they know its an alarm and are they able to leave on their own. If they do and can and don't evacuate then their names are given in report to CX/MD or equivalent. Senior Managers deal with this. So far no one sacked but written warnings given and on their records - no excuse accepted (unless they were waiting for assistance). If they haven't recognised the alarm, procedures etc looked at.

Posted By Aidan Toner QUOTE-QUOTE-QUOTE -Any failure to comply with a health and safety rule or instruction in the organisation should be dealt with as gross misconduct and the person dealt with accordingly-. Happy to go along with the last bit of the statement, not so sure i want to be charged with gross misconduct IF I don't sit straight in my chair whilst typing this e-mail.

Posted By shaun mckeever Funny enough I had a discussion with a company Chief Executive today. I had been pre-informed that he refuses to evacuate when the fire alarm goes off. He was unaware that I knew. I started off by telling him that I was carrying out a FRA and I just needed to assess staff response to emergency situations. I asked him what he would do if he were the one discovering a fire. After realising that he didn't know (he even suggested using a water extinguisher on an electrical fire) I suggested that he should raise the alarm - Ahh yes he said, I knew that. That's good, where is your nearest fire alarm call point?....ummm! You get the drift. I turned to the evacuation. 'Which exit route do you use?'. He said 'the main stairs'. 'But that is not your nearest exit'. 'Do you know where your nearest exit is?'....ummmm! Other questions as part of the fire risk assessment that were asked - How long does the evacuation take? Are you achieving the recommended 2.5 mins? If not do you know why? Do you feedback to your staff areas for improvement? How do you deal with staff who delay their evacuation? Have you made it a disciplinary offence? Do you think it appropriate for firefighters, who also have families, to risk their life because someone has deliberately ignored a fire alarm? This line of questioning can be done in a manner that is not confrontational but in a softly softly manner. I find that it tends to focus the mind of those being asked the questions.