No senior staff in office

[WayOutOfMyDepth]

My employer has had some people in the office throughout the pandemic as we are classed as key workers and some aspects of the job can't be done remotely. We are mostly junior in terms of grading ie most people on the lowest grade and maybe one or two from one or two grades above. Very rarely someone more senior will come in but they mostly work from home.

There's been a couple of times when people have taken ill/injured themselves and whoever is around has to deal with it.

Some colleagues have fairly complex health needs eg epilepsy, cancer not in remission etc and we have had to manage this ourselves because there is no one from HR and no one health and safety trained on site.

Me and my colleagues only earn £18k and although there is usually someone in from the grade above us they aren't always available. I've had to speak to the 999 service and don't know what I'm talking about when I do. It just doesn't feel either coherent or safe.

How can I raise this? How are other businesses handling it?

To be clear I don't want to take health and safety training myself. I don't want the responsibility given that I don't earn very much. I want our managers to come up with a solution.

So talk to them, like a grown up, about what is going wrong without them in the office.

If you have a CIA rep, raise it with them.
Email your line manager with concerns that there are no first aiders,possibly even fire wardens should a fire break out, and maybe it would be worth them asking for volunteers.
Staff are not obliged to share their medical details so managers may not even know the answers to the questions the paramedics asked.

Management aren't needed, but first aiders and fire wardens are, and their should be one of each on duty for every shift

Oh right
Who did this before?

I bloody hate locking up etc, I did it in my first job, never again.

Halz what's a CIA rep?

OP just for context, my place is open two days a week for those who need or want to go in. There's a security guard on all day, and a manager who is trained in first aid and knows something about the fire procedure, though where we are, that's not complicated.

@WayOutOfMyDepth

And if you knew that the reason there's no management in the building is not because they're unavailable or unavoidably detained but because for all that time they've been sat at home watching while you went out to work on the bus in a pandemic, waking up and listening to the news about 1000 people a day dying, 1800 people a day dying, wondering if today is going to be the day you catch the Rona, while your manager chooses to stay at home and lets you deal with whatever comes up in the office in the meantime, for your £18k a year? Would you still be so sanguine then?

You really are bitter that managers got to work from home whilst you hd to go to the office

OP sounds like a troll - complains is lowly paid but doesn’t want to earn more lmao

@Ostara212

Halz what's a CIA rep?

OP just for context, my place is open two days a week for those who need or want to go in. There's a security guard on all day, and a manager who is trained in first aid and knows something about the fire procedure, though where we are, that's not complicated.

It is a member of the department that stuff raise issues with, the rep then raises this with senior management

OP I can see this has moved on from the H&S issue, but for what it’s worth, I’m also a work first aider (and wouldn’t have detailed medical info about everyone on the floor I’m responsible for). I take on the responsibility because it allows me to update my first aid knowledge every two years, at my employers expense, which I consider a valuable benefit/life skill.

I also scuba dive and once had to give CPR to a snorkeller on a snorkelling expedition, in front of my 8yr old DS, who was on his first snorkelling trip. Nobody else on the boat, including the crew, knew what to do - they were panicking so much I had to remind them to call for a boat to get the guy back to shore ASAP. He would have died if I hadn’t learnt CPR. So please, think about taking a first aid course if you get the chance, not to specifically benefit work, but you never know when you might need it.

I'm sorry you're finding it tough. Do you think your resentment is making this situation even more complicated though?

1. being a manager does not mean looking after sick people during a seizure in the office is in your job description. It's an emergency and whoever is there handles it as best they can, same as would happen if it happened in the street

2. people who can work from home were TOLD to do so for the majority of the last year. This lowers the risk for key workers like you that can't do that as there are less people around.

3. how much you do or dont earn, how much they do or dont earn has no impact on helping out during an emergency or means that they're medically trained.

Having said that, a first aider should be on site but that could be anyone.

Is your workplace very hierarchy orientated?

But how much you earn, usually related to the responsibility/seniority of your job role, does have an impact on how medical emergencies (for example) are followed up.

I think that's what OP's rightly aggrieved about. That, as she sees it, managers aren't providing the line management and support that they should, not even remotely.

I do see where she's coming from. Remote managing for a long period of time, with no other managers on site, is ridiculous. You actually have no idea what's happening in the office/worksite (as OPs examples of people shredding things they they don't know what to do with and spending all day on their phones indicate).

@christinarossetti19

But how much you earn, usually related to the responsibility/seniority of your job role, does have an impact on how medical emergencies (for example) are followed up.

I think that's what OP's rightly aggrieved about. That, as she sees it, managers aren't providing the line management and support that they should, not even remotely.

I do see where she's coming from. Remote managing for a long period of time, with no other managers on site, is ridiculous. You actually have no idea what's happening in the office/worksite (as OPs examples of people shredding things they they don't know what to do with and spending all day on their phones indicate).

I'm not saying it's right that managers aren't in at all, both myself and dp are both in our offices at least half the week now but we worked remotely for almost a year with none of these issues, but surely at some point adults need to take responsibility for themselves? People doing their job should be expected to know how to do their job and not shred things when they don't know what else to do or sit on their phone. How do we have a full office of people who can't be trusted to do their own job?

Inadequate management, it looks like, not helped by managers not having eyes on what's going on.

@LateAtTate

OP sounds like a troll - complains is lowly paid but doesn’t want to earn more lmao

There speaks someone with limited experience of certain parts of the public sector...

My husband works in an office usually over a hundred people, but in covid times the most was 30 recently, and most days it is only 5 to 10 people.

No one wanted to be first aider as everyone was scared of having to give the kiss of life and getting covid, which is crazy but there you go. So my DH stepped up, he is a senior director and rocked up to his 2-day St John's training in his expensive sports car to discover he was the only senior manager they had trained in ages. Usually the task is delegated to less expensive personnel.

Anyway my DH is perfectly able to wfh every day but now he goes to the office 4 times a week to share the duty of onsite first aider. The office makes sure someone with manager responsibilities is in the office every day. It's just common sense, and possibly an insurance risk to do it any other way.

I agree that there are many parts of the public sector with limited opportunities for progression. This is especially true for departments that don't have a lot of interaction with management. You can work hard, take on responsibility but no one is there to give a shit.