Ideally, the introduction of the policies is best achieved through a multidisciplinary team, including management, human resources, legal advisors, and employees and their representatives, in addition to occupational health professionals.
A useful way of involving all the relevant stakeholders is to set up a steering group with a senior manager acting as ‘champion’ to chair the steering group and oversee implementation of the policy.
During implementation, there should be regular report-back arrangements to keep managers and employees or employee representatives fully aware of the progress, including any major successes or failures that have occurred.
Checking progress
As with the implementation of any management plan (see health and safety management systems), it is a good idea to check the progress a few months after the action plan has been completed. This check should be conducted by someone other than the implementation ‘champion’ and should be achieved using audit-style questions prepared during the policy generation stage.
The results should be given to a combined meeting of manager and employee representatives, who should also prescribe further action to be taken, if necessary, to successfully implement the policy. The subject should then be added to the appropriate internal audit for regular checking in the future.
References
The relevant HSE guidance can be found at:
The Faculty of Occupational Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians launched a new edition of their Guidance on Alcohol and Drug Misuse in the Workplace in July 2006.