Introduction to Health and Safety at Work

4.9 
Internal infl uences
There are many infl uences on health and safety stand-
ards, some are positive and others negative. No business, 
particularly small businesses, is totally divorced from 
their suppliers, customers and neighbours. This section 
considers the internal infl uences on a business, including 
management commitment, production demands, com-
munication, competence and employee relations.
4.9.1 Management 
commitment
Managers, particularly senior managers, can give power-
ful messages to the workforce by what they do for health 
and safety. Managers can achieve the level of health and 
safety performance that they demonstrate they want to 
achieve. Employees soon get the negative message if 
directors disregard safety rules and ignore written pol-
icies to get urgent production to the customer or to avoid 
personal inconvenience. It is what they do that counts 
not what they say. In Chapter 3 managers’ organizational 
roles were listed showing the ideal level of involvement 
for senior managers. Depending on the size and geogr-
aphy of the organization, senior managers should be 
personally involved in:
➤
health and safety inspections or audits
➤
meetings of the central health and safety or joint 
consultation committees

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Promoting a positive health and safety culture
63
➤
involvement in the investigation of accidents, ill-
health and incidents. The more serious the incident 
the more senior the manager who takes an active 
part in the investigation.
4.9.2 Production/service 
demands
Managers need to balance the demands placed by cus-
tomers and action required to protect the health and 
safety of their employees. How this is achieved has a 
strong infl uence on the standards adopted by the organ-
ization. The delivery driver operating to near impossible 
delivery schedules; the manager agreeing to the strident 
demands of a large customer regardless of the risks to 
employees involved, are typical dilemmas facing work-
ers and managers alike. The only way to deal with these 
issues is to be well organized and agree with the client/ 
employees ahead of the crisis how they should be 
prioritized.
Rules and procedures should be intelligible, sensible 
and reasonable. They should be designed to be followed 
under normal production or service delivery conditions. 
If following the rules involves very long delays or impos-
sible production schedules, they should be revised rather 
than ignored by workers and managers alike, until it is 
too late and an accident occurs. Sometimes the safety 
rules are simply used in a court of law, in an attempt to 
defend the company concerned, following the accident.
Managers who plan the impossible schedule or 
ignore a safety rule to achieve production or service 
demands, are held responsible for the outcomes. It is 
acceptable to balance the cost of the action against 
the level of risk being addressed but it is never accept-
able to ignore safety rules or standards simply to get the 
work done. Courts are not impressed by managers who 
put profi t considerations ahead of safety requirements.