DISCIPLINARY PROCEEDINGS - 10.08.2010

Happily breaking the (health and safety) rules

All contraventions are equal?

As a responsible employer you treat health and safety seriously. But when it comes to broken rules, not all contraventions are equal. Let’s consider two different situations:

Scenario one: An experienced employee, who has been properly trained, uses machinery without the proper safety equipment, risking injury to himself and others.

Scenario two: A new starter, without any previous experience or training, runs the machinery in exactly the same way.

That’s too bad

Without a doubt, scenario one is a serious concern and falls within the category of misconduct, i.e. it warrants disciplinary action.

Not so clear. Scenario two, however, is less than clear cut. Here, the fault might really lie in the training or supervision arrangements. It’s also quite possible that another employee left the machinery in an unsafe condition and the new starter assumed it was OK. In other words, it might not be their fault.

Why you need to act

Where health and safety breaches are left unchallenged, i.e. they’re not treated as a serious issue, staff will become lazy and a culture of rule breaking may well develop.

Risk. There’s also a serious business risk. If you’re unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of an HSE inspection, questions will be asked about your safety standards.

Tip. If there’s evidence that you: (1) have clear health and safety rules in place; and (2) they’re applied to all staff in an unambiguous way, you’ll have a much better chance of defending yourself.

Don’t jump to conclusions

So if you discover that safety standards have slipped, don’t ignore it. The first step you must take is to find out what has happened and why. For example, you want to know if the individual:

• was properly instructed by a manager
• was advised about health and safety rules
• received any health and safety training
• would ordinarily have known their actions violated health and safety rules.

Tip. Note your findings in a record of health and safety disciplinary investigation form (see The next step). Once you have this, use it to evaluate whether the employee knowingly broke the rules. If they did, disciplinary action should always be considered.

Other possibilities

If this isn’t the case, training may still be needed. But if the fault lies elsewhere, e.g. with another member of staff or manager, you need to look at whether disciplinary action is appropriate for these individuals. This might seem like you’re making a song and dance of it, but it sends a clear message that you take these matters seriously.

For a free sample record of health and safety disciplinary investigation form, visit http://personnel.indicator.co.uk (PS 12.14.07).