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Policies

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kngc
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Policies

Post by kngc »

I am looking for an organisation to support me in generating a number of policies, where my expertise or my workload does not stretch to; subjects such as HAV / WBV, confined spaces etcetera.

Do any of you use or can anyone suggest such an organisation that develops good quality foundation policy templates? Or better still, would any of you be prepared to share your policies?

TIA

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safetylady
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Re: Policies

Post by safetylady »

I am going to ask why you feel the need to have a policy on everything?

Your main H&S policy will probably say 'we will comply with all H&S legislation etc' or similar. What will a specific policy in HAVs or confined spaces actually add?
Guidance - to managers, possibly to employees - yes, and that can come straight from you. It is quick and easy to draft, amend or withdraw, needing little formality or consultation.

Policy is set and owned by the organisation, and caution is needed to avoid dropping the employer in it, frankly. The only areas where a specific policy (not just guidance) MAY be required are those with no regulatory framework - stress management, dealing with aggression, lone working etc. But they have to be endorsed and agreed by the employer, not just the safety bod who will probably be the drafter.

Be wary of setting policy standards higher than the legal level, unless sure that they can be achieved. Once set, they become, effectively, the standard you will be held to account against by the HSE / courts, even if the legal standard is lower.

Having said all that, Croners used to do example policy templates for 30 plus topics, they basically all said the same - do what the regulations say.
The time to draft these is nothing compared to the time it takes to make it proper policy, going through all the organisational channels.
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Re: Policies

Post by Jack Kane »

kngc wrote: Thu Dec 06, 2018 10:12 am would any of you be prepared to share your policies?
Have a search on our downloads pages, there are a few template policy documents donated by people in there which will hopefully give you what you need for the moment - https://www.healthandsafetytips.co.uk/.

Good advice from safetylady though. If we can steer management away from the common thinking of having a policy for everything single thing, a risk assessment for every single task or a COSHH assessment for every single substance instead of the process, then we will make our own jobs so much simpler. In turn, a more effective and efficient management system people will have confidence in.
safetylady wrote: Thu Dec 06, 2018 8:14 pm The only areas where a specific policy (not just guidance) MAY be required are those with no regulatory framework - stress management, dealing with aggression, lone working etc.
I think that should be our new tagline.

I've seen so many businesses with a policy for everything, it's refreshing to hear comments like this safetylady ./thumbsup.. .salut
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Re: Policies

Post by stephen1974 »

I've always had a 'policy' for (almost) everything and generally most topics are little more than guidance sheets so that a member of staff can see what they should be doing. It would generally just a little bit of gumpf saying the directors pretend to take everything seriously but would like to palm responsibility off to a designated person as much as possible, list what regs apply, frequency of actions and what RA, SSOW and Forms to use.

I actually quite like policy manuals like that.
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