Rank: Guest 
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Posted By Chris Freeman
The company I work for has grown significantly over the last couple of years and where previously each employee was consulted directly on health and safety matters, the size of the organisation is now starting to make this impractical.
I am aware what the regs say, I am just seeking some clarification regarding direct consultation with each employee. My question is:
Do we have to elect Representatives for Employee Safety or are there other ways of consulting directly other than face to face such as newsletters, workgroups etc that would satisfy the requirements of the regs, and not necessitate the election of ROES's?
I wish to give a definitive answer to my management team on what route we need to go down, as currently there are differing interpretations of what the regs are saying within the management group.
Thanks
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Rank: Guest
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Posted By steve e ashton
Chris:
RoES would be elected by the workers not by the Company, although it would be normal for the Company to assist with the administration of such an election.
The Regs do not stipulate HOW direct consultation with the workers must be achieved, so the choice of mechanism is yours. There is no obligation to get everyone together specifically for face-to-face consultation.
The obligation is to provide information to enable the employees to participate fully and effectively. Certainly, the necessary info could be imparted by newsletters, notice boards, toolbox talks etc.
However, 'consultation' is necessarily a two-way process - you must also have a mechanism in place to enable the workers to respond to the information you supply, and to raise issues of concern. You should have some identified way for feedback to be provided. One way of achieving this is by cascaded team briefings, where the briefers are required to feed back any comments made by the workers to the brief originator.
If you have ambitions for third party audit, such arrangements are best made formal with records of issues raised being kept. I know from experience that some organisations do consult effectively, but struggle to provide auditable evidence that employee feedback is passed back 'up the chain' or acted upon.
Hope this helps
Steve
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