Health and Safety

Health and Safety has become a bit of a joke - but it isn't funny.

I recently read a report (h/t Graham Wilson) which suggested that Health and Safety is becoming ‘ritual excuse’ not to do anything.  If you read the papers, and particularly the Daily Mail, you would get a sense that H&S is all about people finding ridiculous reasons not to do anything.

The reason that it isn't funny is that I used to work in industry, an industry that killed and maimed people.  When I started work there were still employees missing arms because they had lost them in the process, and during my working life I can definitely remember at least two occasions on which someone was killed.  In my later years H&S was given a higher priority and the statistics showed that the number of serious accidents at work dropped because of this.

I believe that the problem is that people have a tendency to play it safe - so if the procedure gives some latitude for personal decision people choose to err on the side of (personal) safety - hence you get risk assessments carried out for throwing some old equipment into the skip.  The problem is that if you get it wrong you are for the high jump.  For example, do you think that cutting the grass is an activity that is risky?  I remember a case with one of our competitors - an employee was cutting the grass (an activity for which a risk assessment had not been carried out) and fell down a grass bank into a river and drowned.  Because no risk assessment had been carried out they were in serious trouble - if it wasn't tragic it would be funny.

Organisations & Structures

I've been following the stories about clergy bullying and found my Bishops blog on this thought provoking.  During my career in industry I have seen a lot of change and an increase in bureaucracy, and I know a lot of teachers and have heard about it in teaching too.  My observation on this is that bureaucracy raises the standard of the worst, but hampers the best - it standardises the experience.

My question - to anyone out there! - is how, as the Church of England moves to common tenure, we can avoid the worst aspects of appraisals.  When the system works well it is brilliant, but when it works badly it is dire.  For it to work well there needs to be an understanding of what it is and isn't supposed to be about - in both appraiser and appraisee - as well as a good practical understanding of the process.  Comments I have heard from clergy involved in the nascent process suggest that this is not yet the case.

At one level I don't want to argue against greater competence, but at another the following spoke to me:

Once chosen, it is their weakness itself that becomes the anchor, the insight, the humility and the gift of an abbot or prioress, a pope or a priest, a parent or a director. But only if they themselves embrace it. It is a lesson for leaders everywhere who either fear to lead because they know their own weaknesses or who lead defensively because they fear that others know their weaknesses.

(from Joan Chittister's commentary on the Rule of Benedict - changes daily - so won't be there for another 4 months!).

If we get into a process of appraisal will we find ourselves wanting to hide our weaknesses?

This perhaps also links to the Naked Pastor's post today, and particularly the comment from a person whose church has someone reading their clergy blogs for comments which are "theologically naughty or somehow subversive to the organisation".

By adopting management processes from an environment where consistency is valued are we in danger of becoming consistent?  (For clarity I think this is a bad thing - and don't get me started on the Anglican Covenant!!!!!).