Health & Safety fascism: Xmas decorations

mart2929Sat 10/11/07 21:00

The Health & Safety Executive has rightly continued its campaign to bust a few myths of the workplace, one being as attached:

http://www.nurs.co.uk/news/briefs/cms/1194463004212694732675_1.htm

On a more serious note, the Health & Safety Commission has published a guide for directors in conjunction with the Institute of Directors, as attached:

http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg417.pdf

All of this looks quite reasonable stuff, but I can't quite reconcile how these two nuggets of knowledge relate to the workplace.

About Xmas decorations, I've seen during my life in offices:
* large Christmas trees in main corridors;
* tinsle dangled over photocopiers and over heaters;
* emergency signage used as fixing points for paper streamers, Xmas cards, etc (blu tac marks the wall, apparently);
* staff dancing on swivel chairs to pin something to the wall, next to a manager in near despair as he brings a stepladder to the staff.

I'm sure others have seen how offices store Xmas decorations ("Oh, we want them out of the way, so we put them in that locked cupboard over there. We have to move them when the meter man turns up, he gets all upset, dunno why, easy enough to move...").

My point is this: an employer whose board of directors takes the H&S message seriously will enforce best practice. If the staff repeatedly refuse to play ball - perhaps because of laziness, or stupidity, or over-confidence in their own abilities on a swivel chair - then the directors must act.

And in the last resort, directors will (and perhaps should) ban Xmas decorations, simply because they can't trust their own staff to erect the decorations safely!

The HSE is right to point out that no regulations ban Xmas decorations. But best practice of H&S regulations can result in the banning of Xmas decorations in an office. Look at:

http://www.laddersafetyregulations.co.uk/

So, you are busy at work. You have customers and suppliers hassling your staff. It's coming up to Xmas, and your office junior really wants to put up some Xmas decorations. You tell her where the stepladder is ("I trust that you can use it properly; don't use the chairs!"), she says "yeah yeah yeah", but half an hour later, you spot her dancing on a swivel chair putting decorations up. You react, "Oi!". She panics - of course, she knows she shouldn't be doing this! - loses her balance, falls onto the floor and breaks a rib and an arm.

As other staff flock around her, you call for an ambulance to retrieve the broken staff (sic). You are furious and immediately go find the stepladder. You find it exactly where you described it, covered in a year's supply of dust.

Immediately upon arrival, one of the paramedics trips over the leg of the Xmas tree in reception.

Just at that moment, a board director wanders into the reception area and witnesses the trip. The paramedic swears at the tree, but rights himself and attends to the call, followed eagerly by the now panic-striken director.

Within minutes, the director has learnt that the stupidity of one member of staff - the junior - has exposed a risk in the company's H&S strategy that the directors did not previously consider significant at their annual H&S review. ("Xmas decorations? A H&S risk? That old chestnut? Naaah, you're kidding! Our staff can't be that stupid, surely? Why would they want to risk injuring themselves being festive? No, we don't need to ban Xmas on a risk that just doesn't exist!")

As the nightmare unfolds, the director knows the costs well enough. Never mind the HSE (which probably wouldn't be interested anyway), the real damage to the company would be the short-term loss of staff, the diversionary resources required to defend against a have-a-go compensation claim, and the loss of productivity resulting from the increased stress levels in the office.

So, the best way to avoid this issue recurring is simply to ban Xmas. The Board hastens a quick telephone conference that same afternoon and resolve to do just that with immediate effect. The decorations will come down tomorrow and the company will bring in professional, fully-insured decorators to do the job.

The following morning, besumed staff arrive to see a burnt out ruin where there office used to be. The only fire alarm going is the building opposite, and its occupants are now rubber-necking in your staff's assembly point. According to the sleep-deprived key holder, the firemen said that the first started on the heater in the accounts office. That was the heater over which some paper garland was dangling from the cabinet next to it.

(The decorator also turns up and immediately starts re-negotiating the deal. "That's more than you said you wanted! I need some scaffolding and a builder for this job.")

So, in addition to a vexatious and frivolous compensation claim pending imminently, the company now has to operate its disaster recovery and business continuity plans. And pay a decorator for a job he couldn't complete (so much for force majeur).

All because one sodding junior wanted to play Santa Claus.

I think I can see how one can ban Xmas decorations on "health & safety grounds," or provide specific "Xmas decoration training." If nothing else, it reduces the stress levels of the directors over the season of yuletide goodwill and thanksgiving.

Merry Xmas, wherever you work.