April 2021 Monthly Blog – Meaning of supervision

The big bang

The company I once worked for bought a small engineering firm which tested industrial pressure vessels.

One day, the teenage apprentice there bolted a thick steel end-plate onto a 3-metre long cigar tube-shaped cylinder  – without, however, properly screwing the bolts to their full depth.

The vessel was gradually pressurised over the next two days with more and more compressed air until, without warning, the bolts sheared and the end plate detached. 

The cylinder flew across the factory floor like a torpedo, and had no difficulty demolishing a breeze block wall where it landed amongst some extremely shocked office workers.

A notifiable dangerous occurrence if ever there was one and we, the new parent company, were prosecuted under the Health & Safety at Work Act.

Prevention better than cure

How do you prevent something like this?  Clearly the supervisor had a role here in checking the apprentice’s work before starting the pressure test. 

Often in my career, managers have expostulated over what they interpret as an excessive need to constantly monitor every single worker for every single minute they are at work.  Clearly this is not feasible – nor can it ever be, with so many itinerant workers these days based a long way from supervisors’ eyes delivering products, working from home, in the field - or even just in the room next door. 

UK law is qualified by the concept of acting “reasonably”, and I would say that it is reasonable for a teenage apprentice straight out of school to need a much closer level of supervision than a time-served tradesperson.

Only you can make this judgement, and you need to weigh up your employees’:

• Age/maturity
• Training/qualifications
• Experience
• Length of service
• Attitude towards risk-taking
• Access to help/advice
• Workload/pressure

Meaning of supervision

In the UK and numerous overseas countries, H&S legislation requires companies to provide adequate supervision. 

Basically, it doesn’t matter whether your job title is team leader, foreman, supervisor, matron, or gaffer.

If your job entails overseeing the work of others then you need to make sure that staff are working to laid-down standards – which includes the standards in your health & safety policy.  Are you satisfied that employees are capable of working to the required standards, and not breaking safety rules, even whilst you are away for an hour in a meeting?

If you are a senior manager, are you satisfied that your supervisors are up to the job of protecting yours, and the company’s, interests? 

Contact us

Arinite clients appreciate we provide practical, no-nonsense advice about what you need to do to establish and maintain a safe and healthy working environment. Our team of health and safety consultants take pride in keeping health and safety simple.

If you need to call upon our expert assistance, or just for an informal chat, please call our office 0207 947 9581, or type an enquiry to: https://www.arinite.com/contact-us/.

Jan Mirkowski