Day 085 - 08 Feb 95 - Page 24


     
     1
     2   Q.   You said that there is a lot of work in the health and
     3        safety area recently concerning customers.  What is the
     4        relevance of that to work or lack of it on health and
     5        safety for employees?  Does it mean that that just had to
     6        take priority, or that you felt that there was not more
     7        work to be done at the moment with regard to health and
     8        safety of employees, or is it just a matter of fact which
     9        you have stated?
    10        A.  I would say it is a matter of fact what we have
    11        stated.  It is not that customer safety is of greater
    12        priority.  It is just the matters that seem to have been
    13        prioritised and brought to my attention from taking on Jill
    14        Barnes' reporting to me.  There have been a number of
    15        issues on health, customer health and safety.  However,
    16        under the broad heading of safety within McDonald's, we
    17        have been looking at food safety in some detail and taking
    18        a number of initiatives in the food safety area.
    19
    20   MR. MORRIS:  I might have misunderstood you, I am not sure.  I
    21        just thought that what you were saying was that the
    22        responsibility for employees' health and safety largely
    23        fell to the Customers Services department?
    24        A.  I am sorry if I gave that impression -- not at all.
    25
    26   Q.   But they were the ones who would have got the RIDDOR
    27        statistics, for example.  You said before yesterday,
    28        I think  -----
    29        A.  They are bit like a clearing house, if you like.  That
    30        is where, not RIDDOR statistics, but incident report forms
    31        go in to Customer Services.  They do not just hang on to
    32        them.  They go to the appropriate department so they
    33        can -----
    34
    35   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  They are the sort of sorting office?
    36        A.  Sorting house, so then they would go to the regional
    37        health and safety officers, if it was a matter of health
    38        and safety; if was a matter of a foreign body in a product,
    39        it would probably go to the QA department; if it was a
    40        public relations question, it would go to the
    41        Communications Department.
    42
    43   MR. MORRIS:  If we go back to the executive summary, or whatever
    44        it is, pages 800, 801?  If we go to page 801, if we look at
    45        the first paragraph: "... the example of how 'hustle' was
    46        interpreted demonstrates that health and safety were
    47        considered as secondary in the provision of a 'quality
    48        service'."  We did discuss that before.  I know it is going
    49        over old ground a bit, but do some stores get very
    50        enthusiastic about speed and efficiency at the expense of 
    51        safety?  Is that something which you have had to talk to 
    52        managers about? 
    53        A.  They are enthusiastic about serving customers quickly
    54        and politely and pleasantly.  It is the two things that
    55        they understand makes the customers' experiences getting
    56        your food reasonably quickly and also with a smile on the
    57        face and not being thrown at them.  So, we recognise that
    58        transaction has a number of elements that make that up.  It
    59        is the bringing together of the both of them that gives the
    60        customer the best impression of the restaurant.

Prev Next Index