Could it be that current WHSMS are not meeting their purpose? And if not, why not?
Back to Basics - What is a Workplace Health & Safety Management System (WHSMS)?
A WHSMS can be described as: an organisation wide approach, which translates the intention and commitment to preventing injury and ill-health into a systematic set of processes to improve safety performance.
A WHSMS provides the basic framework, comprising of plans, methods and procedures, tools and templates, for proactively managing health and safety in the workplace. Since the early 1990s, the use of Health and Safety Management Systems (OHSMS or WHSMS) have become common in workplaces both in Australia and other developed economies. They have been instrumental in providing a common framework through which to implement the requirements of OHS, and then WHS, legislation introduced at different times in different jurisdictions across Australia for the past 35 years. In particular, for nationally operating organisations.
Whilst voluntary in nature, the development and implementation of a safety management system by an organisation are motivated by a number of factors:
- To assist compliance with WHS legislative duties
- Improve business competitiveness (with or without accreditation)
- Reduce insurance premiums.
The purpose of a WHSMS is to enable the minimisation of the risk of harm to the people that are affected by the organisation’s activities. However, we still experience a large number of deaths in Australia from work-related activities with Safe Work Australia reporting that 3,414 workers have died from 2003 to 2016.
Pitfalls
Some of the common barriers to success, and when frustration becomes evident, are when:
- The system relies solely on the existence of documented policies, procedures and forms. The focus on ‘paper compliance’ or building the system to meet the requirements of a complex set of ‘audit’ criteria, can result in the system becoming overly complex and detract from the ultimate objective of improving health and safety outcomes.
- Systems are “off-the-shelf” and not customised to meet the needs of the organisation and its context including size, level of risk, nature of operation and people.
- The system is imposed with little or no consultation in design.
- Safety management is perceived to be owned by the Safety Team and not aligned/integrated with operational and overall management practices.
- Health and safety is considered to be a middle level management activity or specialist function that has little influence upon senior management decision-making or board level discussions.
- The volume of paperwork generated by the system is seen to be transactional and loses sight of the overall objective of keeping people from harm.
- Access to the system is difficult.
- Finding what you want is difficult e.g. poor search functions.
- Insufficient training is provided in how to use the system.
- There are no mechanisms for ensuring that implementation activities are verified, the system is reviewed for effectiveness and top management are provide assurance that identified safety performance criteria are achieved.
So are traditional WHS management systems still valid in the current age of disruption…..
It is widely known how important effective leadership is in safety performance. Dominic Cooper (Effective Safety Leadership, 2015) maintains that effective safety leaders need to be setup for success. Leadership is undermined when an organisation has no systematic means of identifying and managing health and safety risks and leaders are not provided the required resources to meet the expectations of the safety management system. An effective WHS management system can give structure to what may seem like a mammoth task or an unrelated collection of documents, processes and tools.
How can we make our WHSMS most effective?
- Understand the needs and concerns of the end users of the system through participation and consultation. Engage people in the conversation so that they understand the context, contribute to the discussion and recommend ways to improve documentation and implementation.
- Design the WHS Management System to meet the needs of the organisation, consult, consult and then consult again!.
- Structure the WHSMS so that it follows a best practice improvement model, is intuitive and written in plain language, considers the context of the organisation, is fit for purpose and takes into account risks and opportunities.
- Define responsibility and accountability for the WHSMS with top management, clarify desired safety leadership behaviours and ensure integration and consistency with operational practices and other organisational management systems.
- Utilise technology wherever possible, streamline reporting and data gathering processes, ensure efficiency in safety related activities and provide feedback on the outcomes. Ensure essential documents are readily accessible to all staff and that they understand which documents are relevant to specific roles/activities.
- Seek feedback across all stakeholder groups on the useability and effectiveness of the system and use this to continually evolve and improve the WHSMS.
- Review and audit the system and its components.
- Build in WHSMS performance criteria and measure and evaluate achievement.
SafetyWorks works with many organisations at various stages of their WHS Management System development, implementation and improvement. These activities can involve working with the organisation to document systems appropriate to their organisation, auditing compliance of the system to established standards, assessing the system as a component of safety maturity and helping the organisation to improve the system to be relevant and applicable. This experience has allowed us to understand what is required for a system to be effective in protecting people from harm.
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