Rules based people please help me!

[SmintyHinty]

I find it really hard to cope with no adherence to rules. Please can anyone advise?
Despite being quite liberal in much of my outlook I've realised over the last couple of years that I'm a rules based person. Im fairly anxious and adhered to all the lock down rules, do what I'm asked to do at work and follow safety guidelines.
I'm finding it increasingly difficult to deal with people who are unable to adhere to the rules. Because of where I work we have fairly good safety practices (fire, covid, safeguarding, medical etc). However in our small team of 9 there are four / five people who just do not do the things we've been asked to do in our training / Risk Assessment. These are not difficult things or anything which hugely impinges on their own lives. However they're things which make my life more difficult, affect my ability to do my job and, just really knock my confidence because I'm always thinking that I can't rely on them to do the right thing (or even try to do it).
Can any other rulesy people help me deal with this? Or if you're a breaker can you tell me how I could get them to adhere?
I'm struggling and on the point of resignation because I'm so worried about the rules being broken and there being serious consequences (plus my workload has basically doubled as I'm having to effectively cover).

Report it to your manager
Training and regulations are there for a reason. If they are not followed your employer may not be insured

Don’t keep this to yourself. Bring it up in your next supervision. If your organisation has rules management need to implement them.

Talk to your manager, suggest everyone has a H&S refresher course and that you’d appreciate their backing in ensuring these rules are kept to as it makes your job more difficult & the rules are set for a reason.

You shouldn’t have to put up with this, they should follow the procedures in place.

I am a rules based person unless the rules are ridiculous. Then I would bend them, but not if it was impacting someone else. Eg at the moment where I live, the rule is, masks outside your home at all times. If I’m walking across a totally deserted car park towards a shop, I’ll carry the mask and put it on when I get inside.
What kind of rules are your people breaking?

Are you their manager? If so, discipline them according to your work policy. If not, report it to their line manager.
This is less about you being a rule follower and more about them not doing their job properly, which needs dealing with by the appropriate person.

I’m a rule breaker, but I’d never break proper safety rules! You need to report to your manager and get this dealt with.

In my job I'm responsible for people abiding by regulations - if they don't, it's ME who will be hauled over the coals, disciplined, banned, fined or sent to prison, not them. So I guess I'm a rules person.

So you have this responsibility? Are you directly affected by them not following the rules? If so, sanctions, sanctions, sanctions. Whether financial penalties or removing privileges, sometimes that's the only thing that brings it in order, because having ethics and integrity certainly doesn't matter to some people.

Or doesn't it affect you at all? Can you get with your job and follow the rules without their rule breaking affecting you? If so...you do you, never mind them.

*Do you have, not so you have

Do you line manage them?

If so have a sit down meeting and explain that it has been noticed that people aren’t adhering to very important h & s rules. Go back over all of the rules which are being broken without singling out anyone. Explain that from not on you will be putting individuals who don’t comply onto performance improvement plans which may lead to disciplinary. Check if everyone has understood.

Follow through

It's really tricky, everyone is older than me except one (Although interestingly now I think about it the younger woman is the most compliant). All female,all close to retirement, one in particular is a difficult character. Slightly odd set up in that I'm not really their line manager as such but I am more senior.
Their behaviour at training which I run, is usually... Disinterested and subtlety critical.
If i put people on Performance Improvement then most of them would 100% leave.
Type of rules being broken are: covid rules on distancing (sitting in small office rooms together when there's an open empty area easily used for socialising etc, not washing hands, hot desking through laziness (everyone has an office there is no need to use anyone else's?!), not taking lateral flows twice weekly (obviously I can't prove this but there's plenty of conversation around not complying), safety rules on bringing electrical equipment in and using it and leaving it plugged in overnight without permission or testing, eating up stocked products that we charge for (this may include finishing something that would otherwise have been thrown away which I'm not bothered about, but also includes new items we charge several pounds for, although they cost us under a pound each).

Amy issue is really that I can't afford to piss them off basically at all because if they all leave then I would be massively in trouble and the business would almost certainly have to close at no notice. So I have to manage my expectations in regards to my need to be rules based against the need to keep the company running.

I think there are two sides to this. I'm a fairly relaxed person by nature so rule breaking doesn't really bother me unless it's literally risking someone's safety. Is there anyone above you or in the capacity of a HR who could help you in some way to communicate the rules to them?

I do have people above me and have already informally asked for advice, but it basically amounted to "if they don't comply they'll receive an informal warning from HR, second time it will be a verbal warning, then it will escalate from there." i am concerned that any sort of dissent even an informal warning will collapse the team immediately and almost entirely.

Is anybody in literal danger or are you just highly strung? (I mean the latter very kindly because people who are very jobsworthy can be very tedious to work alongside.)

Ha that's a fair comment about being jobsworth, I try not to be and I am friendly, jokey and helpful. Yes I do have anxiety and I question my reaction against that fact (which is why I'm asking for advice here).
Life in danger... probably not. We're not administering medication but we are responsible for keeping the building safe and not burning down as well as our clients and staff. It's not like people are deliberately poisoning clients or undercooking the meat, but more like carelessly dropping banana skins around at the top of stairs and everyone looking the other way as they step around it (and then I have to go around picking them up).

Obviously the banana skin is a metaphor because no one could ever eat that many bananas.

Hmm. I'm not sure how many of the issues you mention really make your life harder, OP? How does someone not washing their hands or using a different desk actually make your life harder in a practical sense?

I have changed some of the details. They make my life harder because I know they haven't been done and so that means I can't in good conscience leave it undone. So for example, if you knew dishes and cutlery had not been dishwashed (at a high temperature which helps with our covid regulations) but simply rinsed under a tepid tap and then reused, wouldn't you do it again? If you knew that people were bringing in cheap chargers from ebay and leaving them plugged in overnight with no testing and on non work related electrical items, wouldn't you turn them off before you left (and then back on in the morning) so you could sleep without worrying about fire? If you were vulnerable with a hidden disability and the people around you weren't taking even basic steps they had agreed to take to protect everyone, wouldn't you feel let down? If you knew that people were literally eating into the tiny tiny profit margins then wouldn't you be annoyed?

If you were vulnerable with a hidden disability and the people around you weren't taking even basic steps they had agreed to take to protect everyone, wouldn't you feel let down?

So you are saying you have a hidden disability that causes you to stress about these things that are all really pretty minor, and most people wouldn't be bothered about?
When were these H & S measures last reviewed, because some of them, such as social distancing, are probably not being observed in most workplaces any more. The only really important thing you've mentioned is the use of non PAT tested equipment.

I was in a position like this around safeguarding and health and safety protocol, and flagged it to senior management, no further action was taken but I couldn't live with myself if something had happened on my watch and I made a really difficult decision to walk away. Their approach eventually led to deaths so I felt relieved about leaving before it all escalated (there had been several near misses that I was told not to evaluate or share learning from) but I felt awful that I couldn't have done more.

For a long time I thought there was something wrong with me, that maybe my reasoning skills were off and there were appropriate times for policy to be ignored, or that the policy I'd written was flawed, but this sadly turned out not to be the case in the long run.

If it's impacting on your mental health or sense of professional integrity, I would make plans to move elsewhere and have some serious discussions about organisational culture when you research and interview for future roles.

There are always two sides to this, I work in the same building as my husband, we've been put in separate bubbles, I'm not going to adhere to two metre disturbing and not going for lunch together with someone I share a bed with. Some of the rules are there for good reason, but are there any that are illogical or unnecessary? If so relaxation around these and reinforcement of the important ones can work, because the others will see rules with purpose and meaning rather than rules for rules sake.

All of the things you imply you do, no I wouldn't. I do take my own cutlery and bowl which I wash up and keep in my locker as the washing up here can be grim. I wouldn't go around unplugging other people's chargers, and I do social distancing at work because I'm in a senior role and ought to be seen to, but when my team can all go to the pub after work and not distance, it's all a bit tokenistic at this point

@SmintyHinty

It's really tricky, everyone is older than me except one (Although interestingly now I think about it the younger woman is the most compliant). All female,all close to retirement, one in particular is a difficult character. Slightly odd set up in that I'm not really their line manager as such but I am more senior. Their behaviour at training which I run, is usually... Disinterested and subtlety critical. If i put people on Performance Improvement then most of them would 100% leave. Type of rules being broken are: covid rules on distancing (sitting in small office rooms together when there's an open empty area easily used for socialising etc, not washing hands, hot desking through laziness (everyone has an office there is no need to use anyone else's?!), not taking lateral flows twice weekly (obviously I can't prove this but there's plenty of conversation around not complying), safety rules on bringing electrical equipment in and using it and leaving it plugged in overnight without permission or testing, eating up stocked products that we charge for (this may include finishing something that would otherwise have been thrown away which I'm not bothered about, but also includes new items we charge several pounds for, although they cost us under a pound each).

Most of those are covid rules and I personally wouldn't be bothered if grown adults choose to sit next to grown adults. Eating food that would be thrown away is a non issue to.

Electrical items, insist on PAT testing, report anything not pat tested to your H and S dept.

As for the team breaking down, that won't happen, people need jobs and most can't just quit. Even if they did the company would just hire new

There's no chance that OP could be convinced that OP is too uptight is there.

OP wants everyone else to change. The only person OP can genuinely control OP's self no way would OP consider changing.

Good God, just report them and let HR do their job.
Anything else is not your responsibility

@NeverEnoughJs "For a long time I thought there was something wrong with me, that maybe my reasoning skills were off and there were appropriate times for policy to be ignored, or that the policy I'd written was flawed, but this sadly turned out not to be the case in the long run."
This is EXACTLY it.
The policy and procedures have been signed off at a higher level than me and explicitly mention that things that are currently happen should not happen. So I know that these things are wrong. But they're happening and I'm finding it really hard to deal with that.