In a first trial year we are happy to offer the following choices to new and existing Mesh-4-Safety clients:

• a 2 day version of the “Safely Supervising Staff – Level 2 qualification“
• a 1 day “Level 2 in Risk Assessment“
• a 1 day “Level 2 in Manual Handling Risk Assessment“
• a 1 day “Level 2 in Fire Risk Assessments“

The beauty if the BSC courses is that as the training provider you can concentrate on the candidate’s learning experience whilst the BSC themselves together with the delegate take care of the administrative site of certification.

Once they have attended a course, participants will have to apply to British Safety Council awards ,undertake an externally verified assessment, and will as a result receive a nationally recognised certificate upon successful completion of the assessment.

In addition to relieving the training provider of the administrative burden, the candidate is also encouraged to start implementing in their working environment what they have just learned in a classroom environment, a winning formula all round in our humble opinion.

At Mesh-4-Safety we have scheduled a quarterly open course for each of the above listed modules, but frankly expect a huge demand for in-house run sessions of these, especially now that they lead to a nationally recognised award.

Patrick Jongbloet, Director, Mesh-4-Safety Ltd.

Well the answer is that we will probably never offer a full on-line CD or DVD based health and safety course, and the reasons for this are quite simple:

• In 2010 our Lead Nebosh tutor Chris Ward managed an unbelievable and possibly unique 100% pass rate in a calendar year, something we are incredibly proud off. Our overall pass rate is amongst the best and it is a shame that Nebosh do not produce a league table as such which would give these claims factual back up. Offering on-line courses may well jeopardise this position.
• In our opinion a lot of the learning happens through delegate interaction facilitated by a wise head such as Chris’s who can give the debate the correct steer and answer any uncertainties there and the. Now I have myself sat and passed a Certificate in On-line Learning with the CIPD in 2003 and am well aware that debate is possible on-line, but I think you will all join me in agreeing that it is not quite the same.
• Especially with the Nebosh General Certificate I believe the amount of effort, commitment, and investment made by the delegate and his/her sponsor deserves full passion and input in return, something which PC based modules can sadly not generate.

Having outlined some points why we believe classroom based training is still the way to go with regards to Health & Safety courses, there is off course scope for backing this up with on-line tools and electronic communication and this is an area where Mesh-4-Safety will definitely not hide behind the arguments listed above, but proactively work towards maintaining our position as your favourite Health & Safety Training Provider in the South East.

Patrick Jongbloet, Director, Mesh -4-Safety Limited

Costs will be recovered from the start of the intervention where the material breach was identified, up to the point where HSE’s intervention in supporting businesses in putting matters right has concluded.

The underlying policy of recovering costs for HSE’s interventions through the introduction of fees where there is a material breach of the law has been agreed by Government and is therefore not in question in the consultation. Instead this consultation document is intended to elicit views on how HSE would recover the costs of the work it undertakes.

The proposal outlined in the consultation document is that fee for intervention would only apply to the activity undertaken by HSE and would not apply to the activity undertaken by Local Authority officers.

An hourly fee for intervention rate, currently estimated at £133, would be used for all HSE staff.In recovering the costs the time will be split down into 6 minute intervals. The potential averaged costs for intervention activity are estimated as:

• Inspection with no action taken No costs will be recovered
• Inspection which results in a letter Approximately £750
• Inspection which results in an Enforcement Notice Approximately £1500
• Investigations Ranging from approximately £750 through to several thousands of pounds to,in extreme cases, tens of thousands of pounds.

The actual intervention costs will depend upon the particular circumstances. These costs will be dependent on the complexity of the investigation that is required to follow all reasonable lines of enquiry. The costs would cover all HSE work undertaken including site based activities, administration, office based follow up work (`e` mails, calls etc).

Clearly if a business adheres to health and safety regulations then these changes will have little or no impact; however it will prove to be expensive where any business is found to be in material breach. It would seem these changes will address the issue of where a business makes the call not to implement sufficient health and safety systems because of the costs involved. It would certainly in most instances be far cheaper to get it right from the start. One aspect to getting it right from the start will be making sure you have access to competent health & safety advice. We would encourage businesses to look at their training before this charging scheme comes into force as the consequences of getting it wrong are going to be very expensive indeed.

How we know this works from the feedback consistently received from our candidates; an example is from Steve Gearing who was part of the last group. Steve commented that: I am delighted to have achieved a distinction pass. I will of course recommend your company and have done so already. Please extend my gratitude to Chris Ward. He truly is a great trainer with incredible knowledge and insight. I have taken a lot from the course, more than can be demonstrated in the examinations.

Also Ben Hughes of Marriott Hotels commented that: M4S`s approach to training is both professional and enjoyable.Coming from a Leisure and Hospitality background my main concern was understanding practical elements and terminology.The course material was presented by Chris with practical examples and scenarios to ensure each candidate understood no matter what their experience or background. I believe without the knowledge and delivery from Chris I would not have achieved the marks that I did. Now I shall be able to put a distinction on my CV. For that I am extremely thankful and will always recommend M4S to others in the future.

We feel this is what all health & safety training companies should be providing but know in reality its not the case.We are often approached by potential students who have failed their exams elsewhere asking if we can assist them to develop sufficient knowledge to resit the exams.

We are confident that our approach achieves the results that our candidates should expect; which is why we provide the unique pass guarantee that we believe no one else is prepared to provide.

If you are thinking about health & safety training then why not contact us for a chat?

Experience has shown us that where businesses are prepared to consider there is room to improve and that health & safety is not just a burden then many benefits can be achieved. However to make this happen then the business needs to understand where and how these improvements can be made; this is where competent advice comes in.

We are concerned that part of the bad press health & safety receives is down to the poor understanding of what the mass of regulations are trying to achieve; which is ultimately to keep people and businesses safe and healthy. The must get the tick in the box brigade do not help as often they lack the basic business understanding to make health & safety work for the business not against it.

We feel our role as trainers & consultants is to advise our clients on how an approach can be adapted to achieve both compliance and a positive business outcome. We know that often in business things don’t go how they were intended but it is how you adapt to this that makes the difference.

Recently however I have noticed how many a corporate client of mine (wearing my eager-4-excellence or FM Guru Consultancyhats) have taken to running the course over 3 days. When questioning their in-house trainers or learning & development managers, the answer provided is normally: “we can not afford to have our supervisors and managers out of the office for 4 days and as the course delivery dictates 24 hrs of tuition, there is no trouble in staging it in a 3 x 8hrs format.

Interestingly enough IOSH themselves do not seem so keen on this as they suggest the following points need to be taken into consideration:

• Delegates’ level of Health & Safety knowledge and experience prior to attending the course
• Space and time left during the course for interaction and discussion over and above the 24hrs tuition

A fellow trainer (Craig Lydiate @eighty20risk) responded to one of our tweets (@mesh4safety if you want to follow us) informing the community that we were going to experiment with a 3 day format in July with the following “…..good luck with that, as IOSH Trainer myself it is about time the course went to 3 days….”

Our view is that we are in the service business of looking after our clients and tailor the offering to their needs as best we can to achieve maximum results and satisfaction levels as well as staying within the boundaries of the IOSH guidelines. Our corporate clients, for whom we run in-house training courses, will therefore be offered the choice. Recently when agreeing to run one of these in Glasgow for Sutton Maintenance Group, their local manager actually opted for the 4 day version with the course running from 10am-5pm each day allowing for a couple of hours “in the office” each day before the course and another opportunity to catch up with clients during a generous hour lunch break,  rather than 3 total days absence for training. So there you go, different versions to suit different needs!

Please do not get me started on the NEBOSH 10 versus 12 days debate, as on that one we are firmly behind the 12 days tuition needed to achieve the fantastic pass rate and testimonials we enjoy, and fully opposed to any training provider trying to rush it through. Saving the client two days when 40% of the candidates don’t pass is clearly false economy in our view. Than again, we have the “Special One” Chris Ward in our team of Trainers!

Whilst my initial reaction to the original H&S proposal was moderately positive, a feeling deep down reminded me that good professional consultants build their image on solid referrals from existing clients and, as such, would probably see a new registration scheme as an unwanted additional cost in both time (administrative investment) and finance (no doubt this scheme won’t be free).

There is a comparison to be made with the concept of ‘continuous professional development’ in the form of CPD schemes run by most professional membership organisations. I could create a f/t administrative position simply to complete and update CPD logs with the various bodies our directors, consultants and trainers belong to (IoD, CMI, IOSH, BIFM, CIEH, etc….). The reality is that to obtain continuous positive referrals from clients, a real professional keeps his/her professional development up-to-date without having to log it anywhere. I very much consider my track record with both existing and past clients as my ‘live’ evidence log of CPD and truly believe that potential new clients would prefer to talk to them rather than to check my (non-existent) CPD logs with the BIFM or the IoD.

My fear is that a similar principle may well apply to the proposed consultants register. Taking this thought further to organisational level, many of our larger FM providers operate to ISO and OHSAS standards without going through the process of accreditation and the accompanying paper mountain (or electronic data mountain in this sustainable new world of ours). Yet others possess every certification going and when you audit them on an operational site, hard evidence is sadly lacking.

Thinking about these issues reminded me of a book I read this summer: The Speed of Trust by Stephen M.R. Covey Junior (his dad wrote the famous 7 Habits book). Covey Junior makes a strong and tangible case for treating trust as a real cost saver, rather than just a soft issue. He suggests an analogy with a tree, illustrating that trust can only be achieved if the four elements of integrity, intention, competence and results are present all at once. The lacking of one element can be sufficient to destroy any existing trust.

When I look back at some of the FM projects where our independent assistance was sought in improving relationships between clients and suppliers (or partners), this whole concept comes to life.

Trust is best described by the following five words:

• Passion: both parties need to be passionate about making it work
• Belief: both parties need to belief that it will work
• Honesty: both parties must forget the ‘porky pies’ approach to issues or problems
• Humility: both parties must be adult enough to admit mistakes and shortcomings
• Focus: both parties must be fully committed and focused on achieving the joint goal of success.

These automatically result in an intention of continuous improvement, relentlessly trying to better what has been achieved before. After 25 years in business I realise that this is the only way to create a trustworthy reputation. But these intentions alone will not achieve trust, as they will need to be underpinned by levels of competence on both sides: an intelligent FM client as well as competent FM suppliers who subscribe to achieving an honest profit through spending a substantial percentage of it on developing their management and staff.

Let me illustrate this with an example. In a recent discussion on quality and customer service, somebody sang the praises of Sandals, the company offering exotic holidays, by stressing one of the reasons their staff are so focused and professional – a continuous 12 weeks/year training & development programme (that’s a full 3 months!). That’s a great example of integrity and intention backed up with achieved competence and results. In contrast, I visited an FM operation on-site last year which was into its fourth year of a TFM contract and ‘in trouble’. Whilst honest, friendly and full of good intentions (full marks for integrity and intention), the resident FM representing the contractor admitted to not having had a day’s training for the last 36 months and, as a result, was struggling with the demands of her more informed client.

Taking this back to the original discussion point on the proposed H&S professional consultants register, I have a further point of interest: should there equally be a register for ‘professional clients’? Take as an argument in favour the case of a company in Kent. Having carried out initial diagnostics leading to a report in October 2008, we were signed up by their board for a support package. Nearly two years later, we are confronted with a total lack of commitment with regards to implementation, two invoices written off as bad debt and the possibility of our professional brand and image being tarnished as they may still be using our name as ‘retained H&S consultancy’ in their company literature. Exposing may help to stop this, but hopefully my point is clear: anyone for a clients register?

In conclusion, in my opinion there are a lot of hours and effort wasted on CPD schemes and certification programmes. I sincerely doubt how much of an influence they have on a client’s decision as to whether or not to engage with you on a professional basis, at an individual or an organisational level.

But if you have a few spare hours on a plane or a train, read The Speed of Trust: it could save you money and make you even more successful than you are today!

Patrick Jongbloet is Founder/Director of eager-4-excellence ltd and Co-founder/Director of Mesh-4-Safety ltd.

Whilst my initial reaction was positive, a feeling deep down tells me that good professional consultants build their image on solid referrals from existing clients, and as such would probable see a new registration scheme as an unwanted additional cost in both time (administrative investment) and finance (no doubt this scheme won’t be free). There is a comparison to be made with the concept of “Continuous Professional Development” or CPD schemes run by most professional membership organisations. Indeed I could create a FT administrative position simply to complete and update CPD logs with the various bodies our directors, consultants, and trainers belong to (IOD, CMI, IOSH, BIFM, CIEH, etc….). The reality is that to obtain continuous positive referrals from clients a real professional keeps his/her professional development up to date without having to log it anywhere. My fear is that a similar theory may well apply to the proposed consultants register.

But should there equally be a register for professional clients? Take Integer Logistics from New Romney in Kent: Having carried out an initial diagnostic leading to a report in October 2008, their board initially signed up to a support package. Nearly 2 years later we are confronted with a total lack of commitment with regards to implementation of said report, 2 invoices written off as bad debt, and the possibility of our professional brand and image being tarnished as they may still be using our name as “retained H&S consultancy” in their company literature. Exposing them through this letter should stop this, but hopefully my point is clear: anyone for a “professional clients” register?

Patrick Jongbloet

[Letter published in Safety Management Magazine]