How not to change a light bulb

Essex · Post by **Essex** » Wed Aug 10, 2016 10:42 pm

slippy floor wrote:Surely the incident should have been taken as a lessoned learned for both parties, instead of asking for the guys head on a plate.
Luckily nobody was injured, and yes if there had been, this would be a different story.

The OP learned a lesson in that he has identified 1 poor procedure, also ask how many other poor procedure actions are going on as "we've always done it this way".
The engineer learned a lesson as well and should receive the necessary training / hazard perception to eliminate this type of behaviour.

Throwing the book at people for doing a task that "its always been done this way" to me is not the answer, education is. Now if the guy had been caught previously,re-trained with a SSoW and continued to carry out this action then yes disciplinary action is needed.

Health and Safety gets a bad enough name without using Thors hammer to drive in a drawing pin
.
Its better to get the work force on our side by working with them and helping to educate them. If a H&S Dept can work for / with employees rather than dictating, this can help to promote a better culture, instead of employees having a dislike / distrust of the H&S bods.

Yes you can always look at the worst case WHAT IF scenario, but as has been said a million times we should all stay in bed.
MMM now that's a though, nice comfy warm bed, like floating in a warm cloud.

+2

Essex · Post by **Essex** » Wed Aug 10, 2016 10:45 pm

All a straight out sacking will do is drive reporting underground and create the opposite of a safe culture. Everyone will just think H&S is out to ruin people's lives. Education is the key. The operative should be stood down and trained. To have one mistake and ask for his head is a disgrace IMO. He could be going through extreme pressures or anything that on this occasion could have clouded his judgement.

Post by **jonsi** » Thu Aug 11, 2016 8:50 am

Essex wrote:Education is the key. A manager should always stand by their team. They employed them.

then counsel him and sack his manager for allowing him to behave that way. Unless the dangerous culture is challenged it is condoned and will always remain.

markspark7 · Post by **markspark7** » Thu Aug 11, 2016 9:30 am

jonsi wrote:
Essex wrote:Education is the key. A manager should always stand by their team. They employed them.
then counsel him and sack his manager for allowing him to behave that way. Unless the dangerous culture is challenged it is condoned and will always remain.

In my defence I wanted him sacked , not in my duty of an H&S manager but as a Maintenenace manager.He broke so many rules that as his manager I could have been prosecuted.
This incident as since been used by myself as a way of teaching as "not what to do" .Unfortunately this isn't an isolated incident by this same employee and he's attended various training courses since but his attitude has not changed. at what point to you concede defeat and get rid??

Of all the people who've said that sacking him would be overkill, do any of you think that you would have remained employed on any large building site like Bovis , Mcalpine etc. if you worked in the same way?

markspark7 · Post by **markspark7** » Thu Aug 11, 2016 9:33 am

jonsi wrote:
Essex wrote:Education is the key. A manager should always stand by their team. They employed them.

I didn't employ any of the staff, I inherited the original team of engineers. I have since replaced or retrained 75% of the team due to lack of training / competance.
I even had one guy working as a principal duty holder who wasn't even qualified

slippy floor · Post by **slippy floor** » Thu Aug 11, 2016 1:59 pm

Unfortunately this isn't an isolated incident by this same employee and he's attended various training courses since but his attitude has not changed. at what point to you concede defeat and get rid??
Obviously you know more about this employee than any of us, and as you have said above there's more to it. You say he has received further training on more than one occasion..
Has he been disciplined for his behaviour?
If not, he should be ...as he sounds like a serial offender and a liability, and if it carries on then you can only discipline so many times before being fired.
Maybe he thinks he is one of the untouchable, due to lack of higher management backing which will send out the wrong message for H&S.
The joys

Mat · Post by **Mat** » Thu Aug 11, 2016 8:17 pm

Interesting situation, Mr MarkSpark.

So what do you think is the individuals motivation for acting as he does?

Which word do you think sums him up.?

Waster?
Slacker?
Bad apple (2 words)
Thrill seeker? (ditto)
Chancer?

If you have 'inherited' him and his colleagues in your maintenance-manager role, is this the fiirst time a bulb has needed replacing?

Mat · Post by **Mat** » Thu Aug 11, 2016 8:45 pm

markspark7 wrote:
Of all the people who've said that sacking him would be overkill, do any of you think that you would have remained employed on any large building site like Bovis , Mcalpine etc. if you worked in the same way?

No, but then it is my guess would be that I would just 'toe the line' as I would know there is no alternative.

Maybe, if your organisation is one where the directors are happy for staff to be a llittle, eeeerm, 'slap dash', the staff may have cheerfully picked up on the fact and simply act accordingly

Do you think Bovis , Mcalpine and their ilk would engage a contractor which had directors that led the staff in a 'but that is what we've always done' attitude?

markspark7 · Post by **markspark7** » Fri Aug 12, 2016 11:27 am

Mat wrote:
markspark7 wrote:
Of all the people who've said that sacking him would be overkill, do any of you think that you would have remained employed on any large building site like Bovis , Mcalpine etc. if you worked in the same way?
No, but then it is my guess would be that I would just 'toe the line' as I would know there is no alternative.

Maybe, if your organisation is one where the directors are happy for staff to be a llittle, eeeerm, 'slap dash', the staff may have cheerfully picked up on the fact and simply act accordingly

Do you think Bovis , Mcalpine and their ilk would engage a contractor which had directors that led the staff in a 'but that is what we've always done' attitude?

completely agree with you on this. Fortunately the directors (especially the younger ones) are now coming round to my way of thinking due to the constant barrage of HSE & IOSH news letters that I keep sending them highlighting the new higher levels of fines and compensation orders.

markspark7 · Post by **markspark7** » Fri Aug 12, 2016 11:31 am

slippy floor wrote: Obviously you know more about this employee than any of us, and as you have said above there's more to it. You say he has received further training on more than one occasion..
Has he been disciplined for his behaviour?
If not, he should be ...as he sounds like a serial offender and a liability, and if it carries on then you can only discipline so many times before being fired.
Maybe he thinks he is one of the untouchable, due to lack of higher management backing which will send out the wrong message for H&S.
The joys

We've only just (in the last two weeks) appointed an HR consultant to sort out the mess that previous managers have left us with. We are now going down the disaplinary route with all staff which should make it much easier to manage serial offenders.
The guy has an HR file the size of a telephone directory so clearly he is a bad apple but due to bad management he's still employed.

Essex · Post by **Essex** » Fri Aug 12, 2016 1:45 pm

Clearly we can only comment on what we know and to sack someone on one example of bad practice is not correct. Everyone makes mistakes. Now you can either be a company that accepts that people are not faultless and creat a positive culture of improvement or be a company that expects people to be robots and create a culture of fear and negotive attitudes towards H&S and improvement.