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How to get committee members interested in attending H&S meetings
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Posted By Sharon
Ok..............
has anyone got any ideas as to how to get H&S committee members interested in attending Health and Safety meetings.....
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Posted By David Bannister
Hi Sharon, try making the meetings interesting. This is not a flippant answer. I have attended dreadfuly boring meetings and found reasons not to go the the next ones. I don't think I have actually fallen asleep in one but have genuinely heard snores from others.
Why are the existing members on the committee? Did they want to be chosen?
Besides the routine stuff (previous minutes, apologies,accident stats) try to introduce new ideas, new personnel if the old ones are jaded and an element of fun and participation by all. Action points can be allocated to specific personnel and (most importantly) accepted by them, with a real comitment to get them sorted. Make the correct people acountable for completion.
Point the committee towards proactive work i.e looking to achieve improvements in H&S, rather than a reactive role.
Is the chair the right person for the role? Why not rotate the chair?
Hope this helps.
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Posted By TBC
Obviously we don't know the full circumstances involved, but I would probably think of advertising for new committee members. This would give you a fresh start with employees who are really interested. Better to have a good working membership than those who feel press ganged into it. The big boss would certainly show an interest in this change and indeed could be invited on occassions.
Good luck
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Posted By garyh
Empower the commitee.
Pay people who attend (eg shift workers on days off).
Invite interesting guest speakers eg from rival company, Union, whatever.
Make sure that things get done, and that people know this via feedback. If it's a talking shop where people whinge about things that never get resolved then forget it.
Provide coffee and bickies........
The last one is quite effective, in my opinion!
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Posted By Amandac
Obviously this depends on the amount you have in your budget.....
In the past I have held meetings at breakfast and provided hot rolls such as bacon, sausage, and for the veggies Egg.
I have also held lunch time meetings and provided a buffet lunch.
Other meetings I have provided 'good' biscuits and danish pastries etc.
the information provided was tied back into the company vision etc and focused on how much poor H&Scosts, such as accident and lost time costs.
Good Luck
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Posted By TBC
Beat me to it David with some great ideas.
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Posted By Pete Longworth
Hi Sharon
Have you tried bacon butties. From what I remember of your colleagues at Goss there are a few salad dodgers that would appreciate them.
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Posted By Pete Longworth
Amandac beat me to it.
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Posted By Martin CMIOSH
The carrot (or bacon roll!) approaches are great but you also need some stick. You want to create an opportunity-cost for the members so that there are consequences if they don't attend. They can then balance the excuse for not going against the cost of the consequence. Here are 2 ideas:
Keep a score of individual attendance over a 12 month rolling average and display it on the minutes. If anyone's score drops below a certain level then get them replaced or report to management.
Alternatively, for anyone who doesn't attend ask them to nominate someone to take their place. This can be disruptive to the meeting but it is good for managers who don't find the time as they have to nominate one of their staff to take their place....they might find it easier to attend themselves.
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Posted By Sharon
Bacon butties and sausage butties to start with then I will keep a score of individual attendance over a 12 month rolling average and display it on the minutes.
See it this changes anything.......
Thanks all!
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Posted By Lilian McCartney
have had similar problem in the past.
Ended up, and use this now, giving each member a specific part to play or subject to be the lead on. e.g. one for manual handling policy review, one for accident stats review etc
We have lunch but I now want bacon roll as well!
Lilian
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Posted By Pete48
Personally I would find the bacon butty and biscuit approach rather patronising. If the style of the company is to provide such things for any meeting then maybe OK but if not then I wouldn't do it.
Making meetings more interesting is also not that easy. Have you never been to a broing meeting? If you can think of the last one and ask yourself why it was boring, you may identify whether your meetings are boring or not and how you could improve them.
A lack of regular attendance usually reflects a sense that safety is not important in the workplace and/or that the safety committee has no respect from the management of the company.
You could try asking each of those that do not attend why they do not attend and what changes would make a difference for them?
The answers may be very difficult to hear but if you want positive contributions to your safety programmes you need to listen and act.
The smell and taste of the bacon butty is only a short term fix and make sure you dont have any vegetarians or people who don't like bacon:):)
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Posted By Pete Longworth
No carrot munching hippies where Sharon works, salad dodgers the lot of em. No sensitive souls either so they won't feel patronised. Keep up with the cholesterol Sharon, that will do the trick.
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Posted By w.j. jones
Sharon
How often do you hold meetings?..personally I would look at the frequency and content of the meetings and look at ways of either reducing the content or upping the frquency, what you will then find is more frequent but shorter, more relveant meetings...not discounting some of the earlier ideas. I think we have to recognise sometimes that anyone who is not a H&S professinal will struggle with what they don't fully understand the liabilities of, and if you can keep the information precise and to the point, with defined accountability, it often helps to gain buy in from people who actually see actions happening quickly.
Hope this helps
W.Jones
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Posted By lisa mccaulder
Hi Sharon
I'm with Garyh on this one. The only thing I would add is to consider who the chairperson is. A bad chairperson can allow a safety committee to become a whinging shop with no positive feel to it and no sense that anything is being achieved.
You need a strong chairperson who sticks to the agenda and involves the members in interesting stuff like root cause analysis and identifying latent failures, active monitoring and sampling schemes and even running a safety award competitions and raising awareness.
without that you find that one or two dominant personalities take over the committee and it ends up being no fun for anyone else...
Lisa..
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Posted By bill strachan1
If your committee members are not attending scheduled/planned meetings ask them why they are on the committee. I suppose some ways to encourage attendance could be providing lunch/refreshments, inviting guest speakers, think about the venue - possibly have the meeting away from the office and send out timely reminders and ask for input for the agenda.
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