15 October 2007
Lucie Ponting

"What you don't want is a talking shop with management pretending to listen or a whingeing session where operatives just turn up to list their grievances," says Billy Baldwin of construction union UCATT of workplace safety committees.

There's a near-universal consensus that employee involvement in safety management is a good thing. Many organisations have come up with increasingly innovative ways of engaging staff and using their knowledge to shape policies. But often these same organisations have longstanding safety committees (as a legal obligation where they are unionised) which were intended to provide just this sort of engagement and which have become sterile exercises in going through the motions, perhaps for the reasons Baldwin outlines.

At their best, workplace safety committees provide a structured and effective way of involving staff in decision-making, delivering new ideas from the shop floor, and improving health and safety management.

Depending on the workplace, whether or not it is unionised, and who is involved, safety committees can take any number of forms. Even where the law requires an employer to set up a committee (see box below), there is still a lot of leeway in how participants choose to structure and organise it.   

So how do you make sure a safety committee avoids the major pitfalls - that it effectively engages the workforce, delivers improvements and makes a real difference in your workplace?

Right direction

Baldwin, UCATT's north-west regional safety adviser, says one of the critical mistakes that can lead to committees atrophying is a failure to plan properly from the outset.

"People say 'right we're going to have a safety committee', they set it up and get a dozen or so people around the table but they haven't thought about it properly and have no direction," he says.

He advocates a step-by-step approach, with the emphasis on building structure and organisation for the group.

"Many operatives and managers have never sat on a committee before and make the mistake of being too informal," he says. The more structured and formal you can make it, the better.

"Workers need to believe they are actually part of something; that it's a formal meeting, not a gang of people sitting around. Give it direction and set out what you want to achieve.

"Start by explaining how it will work, what the chair's job is, that everyone needs time to speak. Above all, be fair and equitable. Also, set a time span."

Another fatal error, Baldwin says, is to forget that safety committees are about consultation.

"It's not about a master/servant relationship from the top down. It shouldn't be a case of 'I'm the boss or I'm the chairman - you're wrong'; or about appearing to listen but then going away and not actually doing anything," he says.

Equally, where workers are actually mistaken in what they are arguing, it is critical to explain properly exactly why they are wrong.

"Employers need to understand that consultation is not about telling workers what is going to happen," he says. "It's about getting them involved in the decision-making process. When you're trying to engage the workforce, you need to make sure they really feel they can influence change."

Terminal success

Russell Hyam, airport operator BAA's health and safety performance manager for Heathrow's Terminal 5 (T5), backs Baldwin up. The project team constructing T5B (T5's satellite building) was determined its committee would be something different from the industry norm, which has historically seen one-way traffic from management to workforce.

"Rather than having managers run safety committee meetings," he says, "we decided it was best that the guys run it themselves. It wasn't about us holding all the cards but more about the guys taking control of their own health, safety and welfare - because they are the ones at the coalface."

"At T5B," he explains, "we used a toolbox talk to explain what we wanted to do and ask for representatives or volunteers working for the different suppliers on site. We wanted members selected by their peers or volunteers, rather than people press-ganged into it by managers. We wanted them to see it not as a chore but as a way to make a difference."

Though most people were enthusiastic, Hyam admits there was some scepticism early on from those who had sat on committees on other construction projects where there was no control and where things had not happened. But after a few meetings, this changed.

"They very quickly realised that we meant what we said - that we backed up their decisions," he says.

Equal measures

The T5B committee consisted of 10 to 12 worker representatives from the major trades on site and met once a fortnight. One or two of the members were union-appointed safety reps, so there was a good balance across the board. At the initial meeting, workers came up with their own agenda and were asked to nominate a chair.

"They also did the minutes themselves," says Hyam. "We gave secretarial support but we didn't own it. The message was: 'This is your meeting for your safety and welfare and for your colleagues' safety and welfare'." The committee eventually decided to rotate the chair each month with every member taking a turn.

Plymouth-based sealant and adhesives supplier Geocel also ensures its committee is staff-led. "We have most of the input," says its chair Sonia Stewart, "but management supports us and, if there is an issue, they will get it dealt with right away."

The company, which employs around 90 non-unionised staff, works on the basis that everyone is responsible for the health and safety of everyone else. Its five-member committee, which meets quarterly, consists of staff volunteers from each of the firm's five departments. Volunteers sit for 12 months, after which a notice goes up asking for new members. This way more people get involved. "It's good to have a turnover - to get new blood, new input and new ideas," says Stewart. "Some do say 'no, it's not for me' but others are very enthusiastic." She says around 70% of employees fall into the latter camp.

Senior service

To ensure committees have teeth, "someone should attend who can make decisions or get decisions made," says Baldwin. At the five-year Bovis Lend Lease Manchester Royal Infirmary (MRI) building project, the committee - which Baldwin helped set up - is made up of workers but, he says, "with the means in place to deliver decisions".
 
Members are either safety reps under the Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations 1977 (SRSCR) or representatives of employee safety under the Health and Safety (Consultation with Employees) Regulations 1996 (HSCER) (see box below).

Initially, the site director went to meetings, but now other managers attend. The main point is that decisions get taken. "As long as issues can be resolved by people at the committee, it's OK with us," says Baldwin. "If there are any problems, we can still go to the director."

All the management teams receive reports from the meetings. "Everyone is aware of the operation of the safety committee," he says. "It has become embedded in the structure; it's not an ad hoc add-on."

At Geocel, managers occasionally sit in on committee meetings to see what's happening. But all the managers (around eight or nine) then sit on a health and safety "steering" committee.

"After our meeting," says Stewart, "I go and inform managers in the individual departments what has been brought up, and they also receive a typed-up document listing all the issues."

They take necessary actions and then around two weeks later (no more than a month) there is a steering committee meeting, which Stewart also attends. This goes through all the issues to discuss whether or not they are resolved, what is being done, and what is proposed.

But she emphasises that no one waits for the quarterly staff committee meetings to bring up issues. Where necessary, staff use normal line management to channel enquiries, and supervisors or managers take immediate action.

At T5B, both Hyam and T5's project leader attended the fortnightly committee meetings. "We were able to make decisions and to take them away and make sure they got implemented," says Hyam. Without this, the danger is that nothing ever gets done; people feel they are not having any influence and they quickly get disillusioned.

Proof of concept

Where they can demonstrate concrete achievements, committees generate their own momentum, encouraging trust and gaining respect from managers and workers. Across the T5 construction programme, hand and eye protection is mandatory on site; the direct result of a committee decision.

"We discussed the accident statistics on T5B and said 'what do you think guys?' It was their decision," says Hyam. "We trialled it at T5B with the committee's backing; then on the back of this, we rolled it out across the entire T5 programme."

One of T5B's greatest safety successes, Hyam believes, was becoming the first T5 project to reach one million working hours with no reportable accidents. "I think it had a lot to do with the strength of the committee," he says. Sonia Stewart also feels Geocel's committee has played a key role in improving the company's recent performance, with reported accidents now down to almost zero.

At the MRI, committee achievements to date include agreeing and introducing a formal stop-work procedure and a "respect for people" campaign with new rules to prevent verbal abuse.

"If there are practical achievements," Baldwin says, "it increases worker confidence. The people who sit on the committee get out there and tell others what's been decided if they feel they've achieved something."

Making sure people know about the committee - what it has discussed and what it has achieved - is critical. "Everything is recorded and everyone gets a copy of what has gone on; the questions raised and the answers," says Geocel's Stewart.

Talking point

At the MRI, the committee posts its minutes across the site. But one of the contractors goes further, asking its representative to get workers together afterwards and tell them face-to-face what has happened.

To ensure everyone at T5B knew about their committee and could easily contact those involved, they put up a poster around the site showing a photograph of the group. "The guys can then see who their reps are, see their faces and their names," says Hyam.

In addition to their monitoring and review functions, the best committees support the safety culture more widely by sharing information, promoting information exchange, and improving knowledge and expertise.

"We had guest attendees at committee meetings," says Hyam. "For example, at one meeting an expert in working at height came along." Another good example is that when the site introduced mandatory eye and hand protection, a guest from an equipment supplier came in to show members different types of protection. Members then had a chance to go away with the equipment, show it to colleagues and get them to try and test it.

At the MRI, after members brought up the question of dust several times, the committee invited along an expert. The MRI committee also regularly takes a site tour with a safety adviser and other relevant people such as the site director. The idea is to point out issues of concern and agree how the safety representatives can practically resolve them.

Take it seriously

Above all, Hyam believes, the key to a successful committee lies in buy-in from the workforce: "If people are there because they're told to be, you're not going to achieve a lot. At T5B we tried to generate a sense of pride around the committee. We wanted to make sure people held the position in high esteem, so they took the role seriously."

Stewart, who has been involved in Geocel's safety committee for 18 years, echoes this view: "If you decide to get involved, don't expect it to be an hour off work to do nothing. A committee is very worthwhile but it must have full support from both the shop floor and management."

One of the most important things she has learned  - and her top tip for building a strong committee - is that "everyone has got to listen to everyone else."

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What the law says 

• Section 2(7) of the Health and Safety at Work Act requires employers in prescribed cases to set up a safety committee if safety representatives request them to do so. The committee's role is to keep measures taken to ensure employees' health and safety under review.  
• The Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations 1977 prescribe the cases where an employer must set up a committee. Under these Regulations, where the employer recognises a trade union and the union has appointed safety representatives, the employer must consult the safety reps on matters affecting the group or groups of employees they represent. Regulation 9 requires the employer to set up a committee within three months of a written request by two union-appointed safety reps (see Safety Representatives and Safety Committees, L87, available from www.hsebooks.co.uk).
• The Health and Safety (Consultation with Employees) Regulations 1996 require employers to consult employees not covered by trade union safety reps either directly or through elected representatives of employee safety. These Regulations do not prescribe circumstances where an employer must set up a committee.  

Outside the specific regulatory requirements, any employer can choose to establish a safety committee to help meet their general duties to consult staff and to involve workers in contributing to health and safety arrangements.

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