Safety Management System Success: Part 1, Questions for a New System

If you work for a new company your company likely needs to build a new HSE or safety management system. Or maybe you work for an established company but they don't have a system or they want to start over. Regardless, if you are looking to ensure success for your new safety management system then this article is for you. However, if you are in charge of an existing safety management system then check out this link.

NOTE: The terms "HSE" and "safety" are used interchangeably as both are used by industry and our clients.

Suppose you are responsible for the new system. You must understand why you are developing the system. These clues will give you insight into the company’s culture and direction for building the system. In fact, you can immediately apply the lessons from this blog to your system and avoid common missteps. As these typically cost more money and waste time in the long run.

Background

If you don't know my background, I have been working with HSE and safety management systems since 2006. I have built and audited HSE and safety management systems according to the ISO 14001 standard, OHSAS 18001 (since replaced with ISO 45001) standard, various Certificate of Recognition (COR) standards, and many other management systems for contractors looking to fulfill client requirements. In my career, I've also held contributor and leadership roles responsible for system development, implementation, monitoring, review, and improvement. I started in this profession when paper was the foundation of an HSE Management System and when an electronic management system involved links within documents to other documents. How things have changed!

I also have experience working with out-of-the-box HSE Software. I have also worked on two customizable HSE software projects. Additionally, I even personally developed some HSE Software for an overseas multinational conglomerate. I have served as an employee and a consultant, so I have seen many safety management systems and from multiple perspectives.

I will expand on the three questions above to help you look at their new system from a different perspective. Additionally, you will gather valuable knowledge to improve system development and implementation.

1. Why are you doing this?

There are two main reasons why a new company builds a safety management system. Firstly, they need a system to mitigate and manage their HSE risk. Secondly, they need to satisfy an external requirement, whether that be from regulatory, client, or another stakeholder. It is essential to clarify this as it should dramatically impact how you approach building your new system.

Externally Driven

As I shared in a presentation for two national safety conferences, if a company is externally driven, they mitigate and manage their organizational HSE risk because they must, not because they want to. This impacts employee buy-in and system effectiveness, and success. Think of any previous job and ask yourself, did you do your best because you had to or wanted to? We always do our best when we want to, not when we are forced to. This is human nature. Some people like to take the human element out of management systems, but this is a huge oversight. We will get into that in a future blog.

Internally Driven

Suppose you work for an internally driven company. In that case, you are building the system because of how important it is to set employees up for safety success by giving them tools to understand and mitigate HSE risk in the work environment. This is great because safety is not about ticking the boxes. It is about the right people doing the right things at the right time.

If you work for a company building its system to meet external requirements, you must figure out how to move the company from being externally driven to becoming internally driven. It is easy to say but much harder to do. Is company leadership willing to do the right thing regardless of the potential consequences? If yes, congratulations! If not, then the administration (we cannot use the word leadership here because it is absent in this scenario) will only do what it takes to check the boxes and avoid doing what it takes to bring the company culture and system to the next level.

2. Where does one start to ensure new safety management system success?

If you are building a new system, you must identify the "why". It's easy to start, but it is essential to have a clear vision of where you want to go. You also need checkpoints which will help determine progress and ensure you meet timelines.

For example, a system designed to satisfy client requirements will be different from one designed to help empower employees to work safely. Once you identify why the system is being built, it makes sense to pick an HSE Management System standard (i.e., ISO 45001, ISO 14001, and COR) that best fits your needs. If your clients require you to have a COR then that standard may be the most suitable. Here is an example of the elements to a basic COR health and safety management system in BC.

If you are looking to develop a more comprehensive system to meet client and international regulatory requirements, the ISO standards might make more sense. It may even make more sense to build a customized standard based on your company’s and industry’s unique requirements.

Some might argue that one should build a strategy based on tactics, and others would say that one should build tactics based on strategy. I believe you need to be able to move fluidly between the two. From a project execution perspective, it may make sense to hire outside resources to help determine why the system is being developed (A), where it needs to go (B), and the most effective way to get from A to B. Or perhaps an internal resource is better suited for this project. Whoever is assigned the task needs to understand the big picture and why a functional and practical HSE Management System is vital for the organization.

3. When will you finish the system?

You already know the answer is never! Management systems are designed to improve continually. ISO systems incorporate the plan, do, check, act model (otherwise referred to as the continual improvement model). But really, any management system with a feedback loop is designed for continual improvement. Changes to safety management systems conforming to COR are facilitated by the changes to the COR audit standards and the annual audits. New auditors who share their professional insights and perspectives should also enable regular system improvement.

If you have been using the same auditor for the past ten years (regardless of whatever standard your system conforms to), you are missing out on an excellent opportunity to improve your system. If there is some reason why this must continue, then customized audits are a great way to offer new opportunities to re-evaluate the system, but this must be balanced with organizational audit fatigue, so it is less about doing more audits and more about getting the most out of the ones you do. One could also consider doing the traditional audit simultaneously with a custom audit that can dig deeper. Both audits are done at the same time to expand the audit horizon and offer additional value.

Companies need HSE and safety management systems to help manage organizational risk and assist workers in managing hazards. Many times, these systems are mandated by the government or by clients. Regardless of the initial reason for development, it is essential to transition from externally to internally driven management systems.

There is power in questions. The intention of this blog is for you to think about your system from a fresh perspective. This will allow new insights and perspectives. These you can use to improve your brand-new system (regardless of whether you are at the design or implementation stage), which helps send workers home safe to their families at the end of the shift. And is that not why we chose this profession? For most of us, we chose safety to help others. I hope this helped open your mind to some new possibilities and ensure new safety management system success for your company.

For more information on how to look differently at and improve your company’s HSE or safety management system and how this can benefit your company (or to discuss other ideas on how to take HSE at your company to the next level), please contact Risk Defense Inc. by filling out the contact form below.