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Posted By Taff2
I'm new to the company, but fairly experienced in h&s, but not sure how to deal with this situation:
HSE + myself have identified numerous failures in our existing management system - a surprise to our head office directors.
In response our head office recently commissioned a "leading" UK consultancy group (who advertise in SHP - so I won't mention the name) to conduct a thorough H&S review of our management system at two of our UK sites to determine if we (HSE/myself) are over-zealous).
The draft report received for our site is pitiful in content & seems woeful in its lack of thoroughness. Basic issues, such as our poor accident investigation systems have not been reported - even though this was explained to the x2 auditors and they were fully aware of the system failures.
Do I inform our head office that the report is "poor"?
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Posted By Chris Ivan
Yes - dont suffer in silence.
If you complain to the company /account manager they might either spend some additional time on it, or redo it FOC- bad news spreads fast, and I'm sure they would not want a dissatisfied company.
However, as a guide before commissioning such work in future perhaps you should be asking to see a sample report to ensure satisfaction.
Best regards
Chris
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Posted By Peter Taylor14
whats FOC???
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Posted By Jeepster
Personally I would not have done my laundry so publicly. When you go to the senior management give them the evidence and the facts and expect some decisions.
If you want more control, I would have recommended doing your own full system audit against the company standard, generate a report recoding the findings and supported by referencing the evidence. From there generate an improvement plan to rectify the faults and then... present the report and solution for the senior managers to sanction the resource required to achieve your improvement plan. They will get the credit for fixing things without reputation damage/exposure and you get things fixed. You may then get credit for dealing with things tactfully and efficiently.
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Posted By Bob Shillabeer
Hi,
Just to be little more proactive, you say you did a review and found things wanting. The company then got another firm in to do an indepoendent review, am I right so far?
The report came back and has stated the position was not as bad as you first thought, again am I right?
So your natural reaction is the report is not fit for purpose!
Now I get a bit personal, has this made you feel a bit of a pique that the company has questioned your view and been po=roved coreect?
If you are satisfied that this is not the case then you should build a sound case and present it to the board and tell them the true nature of your concerns. If this falls on deaf ears theh consider changing jobs.
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Posted By J Ridley
First rule of consultancy, more consultancy; so I suspect the consultant has left a few opportunites to assist and support your H&S management improvements in the future. However, I think you should exercise some caution here because if you are deemed to be a "competent" H&S professional, then why has the company gone externally for advice? After all, what are they employing you for? Is there any conflict between you and the Company here? Could you have addressed saying what you and the HSE were advocating in a better way? Personally, I would be offended if my employer went externally for advice when they were already employing me.
However, can you simply turn this around for your own purposes and use the content of the report to further improvements in your H&S management system? Could you "sell" these improvements better on potential cost reduction against claims i.e. compensation, legal costs, increasing insurance premiums, reduction in property damage and training and replacement costs etc? What is your current outstanding liability profile? How much net profit is the company making and how much is this at risk, and can you protect this by managing risks by improving your management system? Are there any "players" in a better position than you to put this to the board for consideration e.g. finance director?
Of course the Company may ultimately measure you against the actual reduction of costs for improvements to H&S management against the liabilty reduction, but that's what we get paid for.
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Posted By Gff
Harsh Bob?
I have found that they tend to look at trivial matters rather that get into the significant failings.
You could argue that the trivial matters need sorting to start off with but we don't need a consultant to tell us that fire doors should not be blocked and fire alarms should be tested every week
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Posted By John Watson
FOC is Free of Charge
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Posted By steve e ashton
Is your previous experience within the same sort of industry? Could it be that one mans 'woeful' is another man's 'fit for purpose'?
If you have come from the Nuclear , Rail or defence industries then you may expect the accident investigation procedure to name specialist investigators, trained over a full week in accident investigation to a specific standard, experienced and supervised etc etc. If you come from a local authority background then you may be satisfied with identifying 'senior managers' anonymously (and hoping that some of them volunteer to attend a half hour training session...) (OK - sorry to LA people - I do know not all are that poor these days)
So - check your perceptions of the adequacy of the systems in place against industry 'norms' - there may be room for improvement over the norms of course (one advantage of H&S practitioners moving sectors occasionally can be to 'raise the bar').
If you are still disatisfied with the quality of the audit (and the competence of the auditors) - then yes, you need to get back to the Company. It can be too easy for 'quality auditors' to take a 'conversion course' and assume they can then 'audit' H&SMS - they sometimes don't understand the role of regulations - the scope, nature or requirements of law. The conversion course may only last a half-day. Which is an indictment of the 'certification' system as it is currently applied by some businesses.
Was the audit specified against a standard (compliance with ILO-OSH 2001 or OHSAS 18001 for example)? Or was it specified against a standard and national legislation (which is probably the best option for most organisations)? Or was it specified against the Company System - in which case - if your system is poor, the audit will not identify the problem.... Far too many audits are specified in this way - the rail industry was guilty of this for years, and the Texas City report suggests it happened in BP's USofA oil refineries..
At the end of the day - if you are right, and know you are right, and your management still won't listen- "if you can't change the people you work with, then change the people you work with" If you can't persuade 'em you're right, go elsewhere.
Steve
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Posted By Ian G Hutchings
Taff2
Make sure you complain and bring your concerns to the attention of the consultancy. Like any business they will (or should) need to be made aware of work which does not satisfy the client. Also, what was the scope of the audit and what was it supposed to audit. What was the protocol and standards for the audit? What were the competency requirements for the auditor?
All questions that should be asked. The consultancy may wish to offer to put things right.
Good luck
Ian
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