The
adoption of a “Management System’ approach to safety does
not ‘per se’ ensure safety at the workplace anymore than a
quality system ensures that the customer receives the right product
on-time and fit for its intended purpose. [This may be seen to be
stating the obvious but many safety professionals see a Safety
Management System as the answer rather than a tool]. I have seen a
number of accredited management systems that clearly were not working
on the ground (in some cases not even known about).
Why is this?
Events occur that might be outside the scope of the system and of a
planned approach. For example, a procedure may be written requiring
adherence to certain criteria but when the task is undertaken those
criteria may become subservient to other external pressures. Take, for
example, the ‘culture of on-time running’ described by
Andrew Hopkins in his analysis of the Glenbrook rail disaster in NSW in
his book Safety, Culture and Risk.
Safety
Management Systems (like Quality Management Systems) are often written
around a ‘Standard’ and may not reflect reality on the
ground. A true strategic approach to safety will (in the Henry
Mintzberg concept) allow for both deliberate and emergent strategies.
For planned strategy to successfully ensure safety in the workplace, in
Mintzberg’s words: ‘the environment must be perfectly
predictable, totally benign, or else under the full control of the
organization’[1]. Because this is unlikely to be the case,
there is a need to give some decision-making to those who supervise and
those who undertake the task. Parameters that describe the level of
decision-making permitted at each level of the organization must be
clearly established and promulgated. These will vary with the type and
degree of risk. It is inherent in this discussion that those involved
in that decision-making have good knowledge and understanding of the
health and safety risks though training and experience.
Where
a strategy originates through shared beliefs, employees and managers
share a vision and identify strongly with it and will exhibit patterns
of behaviour consistent with that belief. This
‘ideological’ strategy is the ultimate strategic approach
to safety but will usually fall short because the environment is not
perfectly predictable and different external pressures will be brought
to bear on supervisors and employees under different circumstances and
at different times.
A strategic approach to safety will
look at both the external and internal drivers of safety performance at
the workplace. It will consider both the individual’s and the
organization’s span of control under different scenarios for
different risks and define an agreed approach to decision-making for
those circumstances. There are some decisions that employees cannot be
allowed to make in the interests of their own safety (such as the use
of a particular type of mask with a dangerous chemical) but equally,
there will be decisions that managers should not make on their behalf,
unless in consultation (such as, when not to proceed with a task when
they know they do not have the skill to do it safely).
This
is point of Australian OHS legislation’s requirement for
consultation between employers and employees on safety matters. It
allows for a flexible approach, where that is practical, to drive
towards a strategy based on a shared belief. That belief is that no one
should be injured at work.
‘The rationale for
encouraging risk-awareness among employees stems in part from the
impossibility of devising a set of safety rules which adequately covers
every situation’.[2]
[1]
Mintzberg, H., and Waters, J.A.,1985, ‘Of Strategies,
Deliberate and Emergent’, Strategic Management Journal 6,
pp257-272.
[2] Hopkins, A., Safety, Culture and
Risk, The Organizational Causes of Disaster, 2005, CCH Australia Ltd.
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