CHANGING BEHAVIOUR

摘要

THE WIELDING of a big stick or other form of admonishment will not improve the health and safety performance of people. A friend of mine was stopped by the Police a while back and cautioned for driving too fast. A week later he was stopped again and prosecuted - he still drives too fast! The threat of punishment or even the experience of it does not necessarily mean that people will comply with a rule; it is generally accepted in an employment context that once we resort to punishment as a means to foster compliance we have failed. Punishment has a certain finality about it. Further still, the more often punishment is applied, the more likely the destruction of goodwill and cooperation between managers and the workforce. For any business to run successfully there needs to be a good working relationship between the management and employees, and the ingredients that make up good employment relations are no different to those that achieve high standards of health and safety. The so-called 4 Cs: co-operation = teamwork/consultation/ harmonisation communication = discuss/listen/explain/understand (both management and staff) competence = training/selection/recruitment/performance control = statistical process control/ total quality management/procedures/ policies/budgets/monitoring.