Question No.

7:
On the basis of given scenario, followings are the negative indicators of health and
safety culture at the car showroom:
Health and safety culture: The objective of the showroom management was focused
on car sales mostly at the expense of safety, exhibiting a very negative health and
safety culture indicator.
Freedom: The excessive freedom was provided to the sales team, leading towards a
negative health and safety culture.
Risky-activities: Most of the sales team take risks for the greater good of the team and
to maximize profits and associated bonuses.
Fire extinguisher usage: They thinks it is entertaining to use the fire extinguisher to
wake up the Sales Supervisor who is sleeping during their break. However, the fire
extinguishers are intended to be used in the emergency purposes only.
Poor safety attitude: The Sales Supervisor the causal use of the fire extinguisher as a
normal act, and don’t took it seriously.
Emergency preparedness: They put the used and emptied fire extinguisher back to
the position without being refilled and inspected.
Lack of attention: Lack of attention paid during the movement of vehicles.
Mobile phone usage while driving: Although there were signs saying, ‘do not use
mobile phones while in vehicles’, the senior salesperson has observed near misses in
which the apprentice was found using their phone while driving.
Over speeding: The staff was observed speeding in the car park for ‘show off’
purposes.
Lack of supervision: There was a lack of training and supervision.
Very short induction: The safety induction was too short, which was not sufficient.
Accident history: There have been some events in the past, some involving minor
injuries.
Lack of recordkeeping: There was no record of any of these near misses or injuries,
as only one fire-related incident has been recorded since last 12 years.
Inadequate emergency procedure: The Sales Supervisor had assumed the role of fire
marshal, and although untrained, escorted visitors and workers to the assigned
assembly point nominated in the written emergency procedure.
Lack of drills: They did not have emergency preparedness and no one remember ever
practicing the emergency procedure.
Underestimating the risk: They felt that overall fire risk is low and there is no need for
frequent fire drills.
Negative safety defiance: The senior salesperson still feels a lot of pressure to fit in
with the team of negative safety attitude.
Unsafe working: They didn’t worry about the unsafe working and it was a common
practice.
Health and safety accountability: The health and safety responsibilities were
assigned to the head of Sales, rather than appointing a dedicated competent and
responsible person.
Lack of training: The Head of sales who was appointed for the health and safety
responsibilities didn’t provide with any specific health and safety training to fulfil this
role.
Lack of lesson-learning: The managing director was aware and accept that there have
been some lucky escapes from incidents that could have been more serious. But they
thought that in the past nothing bad has happened so far, so why decided not to be
worried about any possible incident in the future.
Ignorance of managing director: As the senior salesperson has courageously raised
the fire evacuation testing safety issue with the MD, but the MD didn’t give it importance
as the company is meeting the sales targets.
Lack of attention: The accident was happened due to the lack of attention, mobile
phone usage, and the trip over of the seatbelt which has not quite fully retracted.
Hiding the incidents: The incident was seen by the sales supervisor, but they had a
conversation that “It is a matter for you, and you alone; as long as you don’t say a word
to anyone else, neither will I”, which clearly reflects that they had very weak incident
reporting system.

References:
Based on scenario only.
RRC INTERNATIONAL STUDY TEXTBOOK, IG1, MANAGEMENT OF HEALTH &
SAFETY