BS 18004 2008 Guide to achieving effective occupational health and safety performance
This large document of over 140 pages provides “good practice guidance on occupational health and safety [OH&S] management” and will help an organisation develop its own policies and objectives and in achieving compliance with BS18001, if required.
Some benefits of implementing an effective OH&S system
There are a number of common sense and good practice benefits of an effective system, including:
* reduction in work related accidents;
* reduction in ill health;
* minimise risk to employees and other;
* improve business performance;
* ethical reasons;
* regulatory reasons; for example, showing compliance with legislation;
* economic benefits of reduced staff illness;
* promotion of a responsible business image.
Developing a management system to protect the OH&S of employees often needs a useful suitable point: This document helps in identifying where to start.
A number of specific OH&S management system elements are identified and detailed descriptions provided for each component part
If your organisation does not have a well established OH&S management system then an initial status review should be undertaken.
Initial status review
This initial status review will aim to establish the current situation regards management systems and should result in a documented statement of the findings. The review will provide the necessary baseline from which to develop your own OH&S management system and also for measuring progress through a process of continual improvement. The report doesn’t have to be large or complex, it should be appropriate for the type and size of organisation and provide a measured approach to your requirements.
The areas which might be covered within an initial review may include:
* identifying hazards;
* the health and safety of employees, and others, is satisfactory;
* assessing risks;
* developing risk controls;
* identifying best practice within the grounds industry;
* regulatory requirements;
* the available documented guidance;
* stakeholder consultation;
* OH&S performance management;
* OH&S audit arrangements.
OH&S system requirements
Some of the key requirements of any system will include:
1. OH&S policy
2. Planning
3. Implementation and control
4. Checking
5. Performance Review
System requirements
1. Policy
This will identify the commitment you are going to make (and are making) towards OH&S. Statements covered will include your mission statement, vision and how you involve stakeholders (such as employees, suppliers, contractors, customers, neighbours).
The commitment of management is an important factor in developing and maintaining a positive health and safety attitude and culture.
2. Planning
This part of your system will identify how you are going to introduce and maintain your policy requirements, as well as how you are to control risks, respond to change and sustain a positive health and safety culture within your organisation.
There are 3 key areas that need to be identified as part of the planning process:
Hazard identification, risk assessment and controls; The awareness of hazards, along with the implementation of risk assessments to deploy appropriate controls is an important process that is necessary if injury and ill health is to be reduced and ideally eliminated.
Legal and other requirements: plan how you are going to maintain awareness of changes – this might include checking the HSE web site, joining trade and / or membership associations (e.g. the IOG), using specialist consultants, supplier or manufacturers information.
Objectives: Identify how you are going to achieve your stated aims. Make sure any objectives can be effectively measured and are not open to subjectivity, which would need to be treated with caution. Use performance indicators that are appropriate and of value to you, e.g. number of accidents, days of sickness, days taken to repair equipment (quick response times should encourage workers to report defects more readily), type and amount of training undertaken.
3. Implementation and control
Having identified and documented what needs to be done and when you might be doing it, the next stage is to determine how you are actually going to put this all into practice. There is little point doing the theory without implementing it.
You will need to ensure that what is required is:
* communicated effectively - otherwise if people aren’t aware of what’s needed how are they supposed to carry it out, with roles and responsibilities of all concerned being clearly stated;
* adequately resourced – financially, staff and equipment;
* reviewed periodically to identify areas for continual improvement;
* encouraged through additional training, to ensure staff are competent in what they do, and a positive attitude;
* supported by staff participation and consultation.
There are many possible barriers to a positive health and safety culture; however, there are two which can have particularly relevance to Groundsmanship due to the wide range of work activities and where many organisations have few employees: These are no worker involvement and where suggestions for improvements are made these are either not welcome or not acted on.
The involvement of workers is an important aspect of having a successful health and safety culture.
Three stages to this worker involvement:
1. Providing information to raise awareness and improve efficiency;
2. Consultation to consider and discuss any issues of OH&S concern. This could result in positive savings by management.
3. Engaging workers often results in active participation in joint problem solving. Considering groundstaff are often ‘remote’ workers with first hand experience of implementation practices, it seems naive for management to not engage workers in developing an OH&S system.
All the documentation that relates to the OH&S system should be subject to an adequate method of control. This means that the procedures and information are current, readily available when needed, reviewed periodically, are updated as required and that the latest version can be easily identified.
4. Checking
If the OH&S system is to be effective, an organisation needs to know how well it is performing. Checking the system through measuring, monitoring and analysis will provide the necessary information on which to form a judgement as to how well it is performing.
Part of the planning stage would have identified some objectives which could be used as some of the performance measures.
Some examples could be:
* Satisfactory communication of the safety policy;
* Number of staff trained in OH&S;
* Recorded use of PPE;
* Incidents that are ‘near misses’;
* Accidents that have involved damage only to property or equipment.
You will need to check whether your organisation is complying with regulatory requirements, so make sure adequate records are being kept. Records of risk assessments, equipment inspections and maintenance, as well as any reviews would be considered within any compliance check.
The investigation of any incidents should be fully accountable and auditable.
Terminology
Incident = “work-related event(s) in which an injury or ill health (regardless of severity) or fatality occurred, or could have occurred”.
Accident = an “incident giving rise to injury, ill health or fatality”.
All records should be “legible, identifiable and traceable”. An internal audit will be able to identify areas that might need addressing and improving on.
5. Performance Review
There are two types of performance review which an organisation can undertake:
A management review which looks at the ‘bigger picture’ for the whole organisation to see how suitable, adequate and effective the OH&S is proving to be. Outcomes from this review can be used within a company report for external communication to others.
A status review is a more focussed one within a defined area of the organisation. The aim of this type of review is to identify and remedy any deficiencies and to improve effectiveness, and to respond to change, as part of a continual improvement process.