Meeting with Health and Safety Manager, 14 August 2006
HSE’s Management Standards approach provides a tangible management framework through which to manage the emotive issue of stress in the workplace.
The Indicator Tool survey has got staff talking about work-related stress in a structured way. This means they will be ready for the next survey when it is run.
It’s been hard work and challenging to gear up the College to implement the Management Standards for the first time, but the outcomes can only be positive.
Cornwall College, a Further Education (FE) college offering a range of academic and vocational courses, has seven main sites in Cornwall. The College currently has approximately 60,000 students and 2,000 staff. 50% of staff are full-time and 50% part-time. The College ran the HSE Management Standards for work related stress Indicator Tool survey amongst its staff in November 2005.
The College has a well established Health & Safety Committee structure in place, with representatives drawn from the senior management team, trade unions, and academic and support staff.
That Committee had already discussed the issue of work-related stress, including the pilot version of HSE’s Management Standards, in 2000 as a result of issues arising from an Ofsted inspection and a subsequent investigation of a work-related stress complaint by HSE’s Plymouth office. In 2001 the Committee established a Working Group to develop a stress policy and a training programme for staff on individual resilience.
The Health and Safety Manager heard about the SIP1 project at a SHEFE meeting in Coventry in 2004 and got agreement from the then Chief Executive to offer the College as a volunteer organisation for the project. Once the decision to join the SIP1 project had been taken, it was relatively easy for the Committee to arrange the establishment of a tripartite Steering Group, chaired by the Deputy Chief Executive as Project Champion, to oversee implementation of the SIP1 project at the College.
The main ways used to communicate with staff are email newsletter; paper copy version of email to support staff without access to email; posters on campuses; and each campuses’ health and safety committee (the latter include trade union representatives as well as academic and support staff representatives).
The majority of responses to the indicator tool survey were from full-time staff, possibly because most of them have access to email and are on campus more often. Some part-time staff weren’t in college during the survey period.
Apart from the Indicator Tool survey, the principal source used by the College has been staff turnover rates. Other data sources are considered unreliable at the moment.
There are plans in train to run focus groups right across the College. The College has drawn on advice from its HSE Stress Partner and Acas adviser in deciding how to select staff to be invited to attend focus groups, and how to run the sessions, in particular how to handle sensitive issues such as bullying.
Work-related stress issues are already monitored and evaluated via the Health & Safety Manager’s regular written reports to the College-wide Health & Safety Committee. The College uses a similar reporting mechanism for the SIP1 project, with the Health & Safety Manager reporting to the SIP1 Steering Group.
Two weeks before the Indicator Tool survey was run, the H&S Manager arranged for around 100 support staff not currently on the email system to be given an email account and given training in the College’s IT suites on how to access the email system. As a result, those support staff now have access to email and the internet, and some basic training in how to use IT based systems that they didn’t have before the SIP1 project. This should help response rates for future IT based staff surveys
The Indicator Tool survey has got staff talking about work-related stress in a structured way. This means they will be ready for the next survey when it is run.
Access to Acas advice has helped College managers become more confident in handling sensitive issues such as bullying.
In hindsight the College should have planned in advance how to communicate any ‘bad news’ arising from the Indicator Tool survey to staff, and should have involved the Chief Executive earlier, in particular to explain the management standards implementation process and the implications of their decision to adopt that approach.
HSE’s Management Standards approach provides a tangible management framework through which to manage the emotive issue of stress in the workplace.
However, the Standards approach raises staff expectations. A well thought through communications strategy is required to manage these expectations, and a ‘safety net’ mechanism, such as an employee assistance programme, put in place to pick up those individual cases of work-related stress that cannot be met through the Standards’ organisational approach.
The College’s greatest challenge has been to try and maintain momentum in meeting the deadlines associated with SIP1 project implementation within the context of the academic year. College holidays have limited when some of the main elements of the SMS process, for example the Indicator Tool survey, can be run. In addition, Steering Group members have had to recognise that the survey is a snapshot in time, and that running the survey again will raise different results because new issues have arisen, for example redundancies.
See 6 above.
In addition, the College has gained kudos from being a SIP1 participant. It is seen by some of its peers as a useful source of information on the practical aspects of Management Standards implementation.
Involvement in the SIP1 project has also helped foster an open and honest relationship between the College and HSE’s Plymouth office on a wide range of health and safety issues, not just work-related stress.
Participation in the SIP1 project has involved 10% of the Health & Safety Manager’s time, and one day per month for the 20 or so members of the Steering Group. This represents a significant amount of staff time in a Further Education environment.
Get a senior official on board before you start, and prepare them for all eventualities (both good and bad).
Make sure you have concrete and well timed plans in place to deliver Standards implementation. For example, you need sufficient time to publicise the Indicator Tool survey, you need to ensure the Steering Group is fully representative of all sides of the workplace etc.
Communicate to staff at all stages of the Standards implementation process, using means appropriate to them.
HSE needs to lean on senior people in organisations to get them involved in Standards implementation. A targeted enforcement campaign should form part of such work.
In Further Education HSE should explore the potential for messaging via the Learning and Skills Council (LSC). This would have the added benefit of getting the LSC interested in the health and safety of staff as well as students. HSE should also consider the development of informal regional networks, possibly in partnership with the Association of Colleges, on stress and other health and safety issues of common concern.
HSE should continue to provide web based guidance materials, with an emphasis on the ‘tools’ concept.
It’s been hard work and challenging to gear up the College to implement the Management Standards for the first time, but the outcomes can only be positive.