Securing commitment

Why is it important to secure commitment to the Management Standards process?

The approach depends very much on both senior management commitment and worker involvement throughout the process. Staff are only likely to take part if senior managers demonstrate their commitment to managing the causes of work related stress.

If you can successfully secure senior management commitment you should be able to show that:

• senior management are visibly demonstrating support and participating in communication activities;
• resources are being allocated, eg extra funding or time; and
• authority is being delegated to relevant groups, eg a steering group.

"For the Management Standards approach to work it needs to be 'top lead and bottom fed'."
Delegate at HSE workshop

How can we secure management commitment?

It is often said there are three types of arguments that are used to persuade management to commit to a particular issue, these are:

• Business case: this typically looks at the current cost related to an issue along with the costs associated with the proposed initiative for tackling the issue and of course the financial benefits as an outcome.
• Moral case: many organisations using the Management Standards approach have initially started at this point. That is there has been a realisation, based on occupational health data that work is making people ill. This data has also been used in the preparation of the business case.
• Legal case: there is a clear legal requirement laid out in the HSW A and Management Regulations to carry out a suitable and sufficient risk assessment and take reasonably practicable steps to address the risk identified in the risk assessment.

How can we secure commitment from employees and their representatives?

You could try to:

• Involve employee representatives (eg trade union and health and safety representatives) at the beginning of the process.
• Involve employees and their representatives in any groups you set up to take the work forward.
• If you decide to confine your efforts to a limited section of your organisation, consider how best to inform other employees.

For more information about involving employees look at this leaflet