By Chris Coetzee of OHSS Consulting
Health and safety is managed in the same way as any other aspect of business. Management control is typically exerted through a cycle of Planning, Doing, Checking and Acting (PDCA).
Chris Coetzee. Supplied by Chris Coetzee
Planning, Doing, Checking and Acting cycles require leadership, commitment and participation of workers, and where they exist, health and safety representatives, from all levels and functions of the organisation.
The organisation is required to determine external and internal issues that are relevant to its purpose and that affect its ability to achieve the intended outcome of the management system. This includes:
- Understanding the needs and expectations of workers and other interested parties.
- Determining the scope of the management system taking into account relevant external and internal issues and the work-related activities performed.
Top management is required to demonstrate leadership and commitment by taking overall responsibility and accountability for workers’ health and safety, ensuring that safety management system processes and requirements are integrated into the organisation’s business processes, ensuring that the necessary resources are available, as well as developing, leading and promoting an appropriate health and safety culture.
Management involvement ensures the establishing, implementing and maintaining of an effective OHS policy and related objectives, directing and supporting workers and managers, ensuring the active participation of workers (or their representatives) through consultation, and the removal of obstacles to participation, communicating the importance of effective occupational health and safety management.
Due to their authority and drive as management, they can ensure continual improvement of the occupational health and safety management system.
Once commitment has been established and all persons who will be involved in the system are prepared to take responsibility and ownership of the safety system, we can start with a P.D.C.A system.
P – The planning phase is broken down into the following three sections:
- Actions to address risks and opportunities. When addressing that broad range of risks and opportunities that face the organisation the following should be considered: health and safety hazards, risks and opportunities, legal and other requirements, planned changes and record keeping.
- Hazard identification and Risk Assessment. Processes are required to ensure the effective, on-going proactive identification of hazards. We can think of things such as routine and non-routine work, emergency situations, social factors as well as other key areas within our organization.
- OHS objectives and planning to achieve them. OHS objectives must be established at relevant functions and levels to maintain and improve the safety management and to continually improve performance.
D – There are five main areas of support and operation (DO).
- Resources – Needed for the establishment, implementation, maintenance and continual improvement of the OHSMS must be determined and provided.
- Competence – The organisation is required to determine the necessary competence of person(s) doing work under its control that can affect health and safety performance. This competence must be based on appropriate education, induction, training, or experience. Organizations must retain appropriate documented information as evidence of competence.
- Awareness – Workers must be made aware of the safety policy, their contribution to it, and the implications of not conforming with the system requirements, as well as the outcomes of incident investigations, hazards and risks that are relevant to them.
- Information and Communication – The organisation must determine the need for communicating with and providing information to internal and external stakeholders. What needs to be communicated to who, when, and how. Diversity aspects such as language, culture, literacy and disability must be taken into account.
- Documented Information – Document control is required to ensure that information is not lost and is readily available
when required.
In each of the five areas, we must establish clear guidelines and ensure we can achieve the improvement outcomes through effective and efficient action.
C – Checking on the planning and action phases requires us to do a performance evaluation.
The organisation is required to establish, implement and maintain a process for monitoring, measurement and evaluation of its OHS performance including legal compliance. This includes conducting internal audits at planned intervals to provide information on whether the safety management system conforms to the organisation’s own requirements and the legislation.
It is important to conduct top management reviews of the organisation’s OHSMS at planned intervals to ensure its continuing suitability, adequacy and effectiveness. The management review should drive continual improvement and the review findings should be communicated to relevant workers, and/or their representatives
A – Action for improvement.
The organisation requires processes to manage incidents and non-conformities including reporting, investigating and taking action. The organisation should take direct action to take control of any incident or non-conformity, and, the action should be taken in a timely manner.
The organisation is required to continually improve the suitability, adequacy and effectiveness of the OHSMS to:
- Prevent occurrence of incidents and nonconformities
- Promote a positive occupational health and safety culture
Enhance OHS performance.
A health and safety management system is designed to enable an organisation to fulfil its health and safety objectives while delivering continual improvement in the effectiveness and efficiency of the system itself.
The direct benefits of the system should be evident through reductions in the numbers and scale of loss outcomes such as occupational illnesses, injuries and property damage incidents. Research also shows clear links between good health and safety management systems and long-term business efficiency.
