Just the job: from family business to site manager

What inspired you to improve your company’s health and safety policy, and procedures?

“Health and safety is one of the main concerns. I just went out there and tried to solve the problems to make it easier for everyone else. I get the drive for improving health and safety from my father.”

What was the problem with health and safety to begin with and what did you do?

“Housekeeping, though not their own houses! The rubbish around sites, bad management of materials, and the scaffolding were the real problem. The scaffolding didn’t even have handrails at one point! Health and safety is quite a new subject in Northern Ireland. I just took the practical approach and implemented procedures that were necessary to make it a safer workplace. I made people aware of the problems around them. Initially we used the legislation as a guide, but then catered it to be more appropriate for our company.”

Did everyone agree with what you were doing?

“To start with not everyone, but in the long run people looked at the improvements and started to appreciate the differences. In time they started to look at what was happening and learn that it was to their advantage. Once they understood what was going on, and how it was going on they became more agreeable. At times, though, we had to find someone higher up in management who could make staff see that it wasn’t just us who thought these measures were a good idea. Additionally, there were people who didn’t support us, like the older style sub-contractors because they have a different mind-set. You always get arguments and disagreements in a company but when you’re trying to implement change things do seem to be a bit tenser. Just the attitude of people seem to change and they start saying they’ve never had to do it before so why should they now. Our reply was that there’s a first time for everything. I think it’s more in the way you handle the situation; if you set the rules, people tend to grant you respect.”

What was the most difficult part of the project?

Trying to convince the ordinary man on the site who wants to do things his own way and get home early to watch the football, to do things your way.

Was it a problem being young and having to tell older employees what to do?

“I knew it was always going to be hard and at the start it definitely was. But now it’s not so bad as people have adjusted to it. My advice for other youths instructing older people would be that all you need to do is re-train their way of thinking. They are stuck in their own ways and don’t like adjusting to anything relatively new.”

What have you learnt about health and safety?

“I’ve learnt that it is important to create priorities. If you have them, then in the long run it makes things easier. If you do the project right and people see the results then they will generally thank you. I think I will carry on with health and safety. We’ve implemented one site, now all that needs doing is to implement the exact same procedures in every other site. You can never make enough improvements.”

Have you got any other plans for the future?

“Just the same as normal, make it up as I go along. I’d like to work in a different type of business though, but I’m not particularly bothered which. Anything to do with working with people and visiting different places.”