Consultation on the New Safety Procedure
Karlo runs a 45-person food-packing warehouse. A near-miss occurs: a pallet falls from a top rack, narrowly missing a worker. Karlo drafts a new procedure requiring all staff to wear hard hats and to sign a log before entering the racking area. He emails it on Friday afternoon with an effective date of Monday and adds a line: "Non-compliance will be treated as misconduct." On Monday, three workers say the hard hats are uncomfortable in the cool room and slow them down; two say the log is kept at the far entrance, adding a five-minute walk each time. Within a week, most staff are ignoring the log, and Karlo is preparing warnings.
1. Evaluate Karlo's implementation of the safety change using principles of consultation and change management.
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Karlo's goal - reducing a serious hazard - is sound. His implementation is where the problems lie.
Consultation: A change that alters daily work should involve the people who do the work. Karlo drafted alone and announced by email. Workers had no opportunity to identify problems before the rule took effect. Consultation is not a vote; it is a genuine opportunity to shape the solution, and here it would have surfaced the cool-room and log-location issues before Monday.
Timing: A Friday email with a Monday start gives no time for questions, training, or adjustment. Change imposed at speed invites non-compliance.
Design flaws: The log at the far entrance adds five minutes per entry - a predictable friction point. When a control makes the safe way slower than the unsafe way, compliance drops. The cool-room discomfort is a real usability issue, not an excuse.
Enforcement framing: Announcing misconduct penalties before the procedure has been tested frames employees as adversaries. It also makes it harder to admit the procedure needs adjusting, because backing down now looks like weakness.
Assessment: The hazard analysis was reasonable; the change process was not.
2. Recommend a revised process Karlo could use, and explain how he should handle the current non-compliance.
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Handle the non-compliance first. Do not issue misconduct warnings for a procedure that is a week old, was never consulted on, and has known design problems. Warnings would be procedurally unfair and would damage trust. Instead, suspend the log requirement temporarily, keep the hard-hat rule while its comfort issue is reviewed, and tell staff plainly that the rule is being revised.
Run a short consultation. Bring together a small group including cool-room workers and racking-area workers. Present the near-miss facts. Ask two questions: what would make the control workable, and what else might have caused the pallet to fall. The second question matters - hard hats and a log address the consequence, not the cause. The cause may be rack loading, inspection frequency, or training.
Redesign, then test. Options might include a log closer to the entry point, a digital sign-in, a different helmet for cool-room use, or a buddy sign-in. Trial for two weeks and gather feedback.
Then formalise. Publish the revised procedure with a clear start date, brief staff, and only then attach consequences for non-compliance.
Principle: Consultation is most valuable before the decision is locked, and enforcement is only fair once the rule is known, workable, and consistently applied.