11 January 2008
Louis Wustemann

If two heads are better than one, how much better are 14? David Gault would argue 14 work well when it comes to solving workplace problems. That's the number of members in the Shropshire Health and Safety Group.

The group draws its members from businesses of all sizes in the Telford area and meets monthly to exchange good practice on everything from smoking policies to shopfloor dress codes.

Gault is health and safety specialist at the Telford plant of electronics manufacturer Ricoh. He started the Shropshire group in 2005. He says the inspiration was an internal discussion group he had helped set up at a previous employer.

"About 10 years ago I worked for Marconi," he explains. "At that point I was one of the security managers and we had a security forum. I thought we could do that again with health and safety, but the nature of Ricoh meant there weren't enough health and safety managers in the business to do it."

He canvassed local employers, including fellow electronics firm Epson and vehicle parts maker Denso, and started the group with just four members.

"The core members have stayed with it, and it's growing steadily," says Gault.

Flying email

The meetings take up one morning a month, usually at the Ricoh site, and typically nine or 10 of the members attend.

There is no fixed structure for the events, though sometimes Gault will invite outside speakers, including commercial suppliers, to make short presentations. Otherwise, the group sets its own agenda through members raising issues they'd like to discuss.

Gault says the local HSE inspector also lends his expertise in a pragmatic fashion: "He comes to every other meeting, just in case there are things he shouldn't hear."

Though the monthly meetings are a focal point for the forum, much of its activity goes on between them. "We fly emails round left, right and centre, saying 'we've got this problem, has anybody had anything similar?'" says Nicky Barnes , senior health and safety officer at the Telford plant of Denso, which employs 1,400 people making vehicle air-conditioning and heat exchange units.

Topics dealt with recently online include the smoke-free legislation, fire extinguisher provision, emergency response for lone workers, and whether operators should lower the tines of their forklifts before evacuating a warehouse during a fire alarm.

"Car park lighting was an issue we were looking at," says Barnes. "People very kindly went into their car parks and did some Lux measurements for me, so we could compare with other companies."

Gault has also recently been picking his peers' brains on the obscure issue of the maximum heel depth for office workers crossing the shopfloor.

"Our HR department had asked me," he says, "so I went to the group and asked 'What do you do?' and I fed the results back." (He says the Ricoh policy will allow a maximum 4cm heel on the shopfloor "but they are being friendly about it and won't police it heavily.")

Members also share their expertise directly with each other. Gault says Nicky Barnes provided guidance on ergonomics when the Ricoh shopfloor was being streamlined as part of an RIP (rapid improvement process) exercise.

"We were doing ergonomic reviews on our assembly lines," Barnes explains. "So we said we can share the information we had gathered. We had made checklists adapted from HSE information and from other sites." She passed these on to the Ricoh teamleaders. "That really helped some staff on the shopfloor," says Gault.

Barnes also helped the food service company Single Source with noise management information she had put together at Denso.

No rules

Gault says there has been no need so far to formulate any qualifications for joining, or rules for the forum. "I usually just lay out what we are intending to do, sharing information and trying to help the smaller businesses," he says.

Inviting trusted contractors in to make presentations can be useful, he believes, though he admits it has to be monitored.

"We'd have to have a look at that if anything went wrong," he says, "but as long as we keep to reasonably ethical people we're OK. There are others we could have invited in where we know it would be a pure sales pitch."

There are also two consultants in the group. One member opted for self-employment after he was made redundant from a local electronics manufacturer while in the group and another mixes employment and consultancy. Gault feels they are a useful part of the mix, noting they have helped other group members with free audits for the OHSAS 18001 standard.

"So long as they bring something to the table, we are happy to have them in," he says. "I don't think anyone has used the consultants in the group so far. If it ever came down to someone not playing the game and just using it to sell all the time we'd have to take a view on that and maybe not invite them back. But that hasn't happened."

The help offered and received by members seems to balance out well. "It's never one-sided, with one person always asking," says Barnes. "There's always a good flow of information."

Thumbs up

The Shropshire group's members are wholly positive about its value. Gault says there is real value in being able to compare notes with fellow practitioners. "You can discuss things openly and put your ego to one side," he observes, "because within the business you are either treated as the expert or obliged to try and behave as one. But within the group you can just say 'I don't know'."

He says the group has helped expand his professional knowledge: "I've gained experience from these people that I would have struggled to find on a course."

"As health and safety professionals, it gives us a wider range of information to work from," adds Nicky Barnes. She argues that part of the group's value comes from the diversity of its members. "The fact that we are all from different-sized companies doing different things only broadens the span of information."

Brian Hayward, one of the consultants who regularly attends meetings, says the group helps him "keep his feet on the ground", hearing the issues employers are worrying about or working on.

"My role with the Learning and Skills Council doesn't involve going out to employers," he explains. "I'm dealing with the training providers and colleges and assessing their performance, so it completes the loop for me, giving me feedback from the sharp end."

Kris Allen is technical manager at food maker Single Source, which has 130 employees manufacturing sachets of condiments and drinks at Stafford Park outside Telford. He says that for the smaller organisations like his own, which don't have the resources for a dedicated health and safety person, the forum is a great way of getting to grips with a frighteningly big subject. "Rather than eat the whole elephant I can just start with an ear," he says.

The group's value to Allen and the smaller members ticks another box for Gault, because Ricoh lays great stress on corporate responsibility. "It fits in with the company ethos of playing a role in the local community," he says.

"We were quite keen to have little companies. The problem we have had is getting the small businesses in. Maybe they don't believe it's free, or maybe they thought they'd be sold something."

Shared responsibility

The corporate citizenship aspect of the group's work means Gault can justify the couple of days it takes to prepare for each meeting "just to make sure I've chased everyone up who's coming and put some thought into it."

"All credit to Dave," says Barnes. "He's the one who kicked it off and the one who puts most work into it."

Nevertheless, he has welcomed offers from other members to host some of the meetings in future. Brian Hayward suggests that group members could make presentations on safety issues where they have particular experience in future. "We could use the resources in the group to cover topics of interest," he says.

Gault has built a web page to advertise the forum (www.shropshirenotices.co.uk) and hopes to post free information in the coming months. He emphasises that anyone with health and safety responsibilities in the county is welcome to come along if they email him at contact@shropshirenotices.co.uk

Categories:
Management skills, Training, Safety, Article, Training