12 Pillars – World-Class Safety

Evaluation of Implementation Degree of the “12 Safety Pillars”

Please let us know your opinion about the degree of the implementation of the individual topics

The attached checklist should help to get some orientation and guidance about the mentioned topics

The Range is from 0% (not implemented) – 100% (full in place)

Checklist / Guidance – “12 Safety Pillars”

LEADERSHIP

1. Management Commitment – Best Practice

Commitment is the basic component of a successful safety program. For a program to be most effective, this commitment must exist from the top down through all levels of the organisation. The commitment of top management establishes the importance of safety and guarantees support for individual elements of the safety program. To achieve the best results throughout the entire organisation, top management must believe that safety is as important as cost, productivity, quality, and employee relations.

Ways you can develop a successful safety culture and demonstrate your commitment include: 

• implementing safe systems of work 
• encouraging the reporting of incidents and opportunities for improvement 
• valuing your staff contributions and involving them in decisions 
• providing safe and effective tools and support (e.g. time and resources to perform the safety role/function) to achieve the desired work outcome. 
• Be involved in accident/incident investigations/reviews
• Walk the talk, balance Observation Tours and Safety Inspection
• Lead the HSSE Safety Committee in your area

2. Policies and Principles – Best Practice

In every working facility, some awareness of safety prevails even though a company may not have spelled out the importance of safety to the organization. To improve safety, a deliberate safety policy must be established and applied daily by each member of the workforce, whether a manager, supervisor or hourly employee. Top management must establish the company policy, which will spell out the principles that are to govern all decisions regarding safety. Without such a policy, safety tends to be pushed aside when other business concerns become pressing. There are several reasons why workplaces need a health and safety policy or program, including:

• To clearly demonstrate management’s full commitment to their employee’s health and safety;
• To show employees that safety performance and business performance are compatible; 
• To clearly state the company’s safety beliefs, principles, objectives, strategies and processes to build buy-in through all levels of the company;
• To clearly outline employer and employee accountability and responsibility for workplace health and safety;
• To comply with the Occupational Health and Safety Act; and
• To set out safe work practices and procedures to be followed to prevent workplace injuries and illnesses.
• It is important that management and supervision are involved in the development of safe work practices and that they provide adequate training for workers likely to follow these practices.

3. Goals, Objectives and Plans – Best Practice

Managing safety, like managing other aspects of a business, includes setting performance goals and objectives. Goals guide the overall direction of the program; objectives define the immediate steps needed to achieve the goals. By setting goals and objectives, the organization is stimulated to develop and organize assorted safety activities into a coherent program. Through goals and objectives, a company can:

■ Motivate performance.

■ Plan and direct improvement.

■ Evaluate progress.

Successful safety management requires clearly defined planning processes and procedures, designed to fit the organizational and management structure of the operator/service provider. A good SMS implementation and safety enhancement plan will lead the organization towards accomplishing its safety objectives. The plan provides the vehicle for practical application of the basic safety principles defined in the organization’s safety policy.

When it comes right down to actually improving the safety in your facility, however, you need to have specific, measurable balanced – leading / lagging – safety goals. Having the ability to measure the goals will help you to know whether or not your improvement efforts are having the desired effects.

Each manager/supervisor’s manager should regularly check in on progress being made against the goal. If a goal is established and then not ever discussed, it is easy for the person with the goal to conclude that the goal is there simply for “cosmetic” reasons. However, if one’s boss periodically asks for an update on progress being made, it becomes clear that the goal is important to the organization.

Focus your safety program goals on doing the right things every day to ensure that employees are safe and well. Consider goals and reward outcomes such as,

• Attaining 100% completion of required annual safety training
• Ensuring mandatory attendance at Safety Committee Meetings
• Requiring managers to provide safety topic review during department meetings
• Encouraging and rewarding injury and incident reporting
• Promoting and rewarding near miss and hazard identification reporting
• Completing incident investigations in a timely manner
• Responding to employee concerns and actively encouraging safety conversations

4. Procedures and Performance Standards – Best Practice

Standards of performance include such items as rules, procedures, and design criteria that specify how work should be done. They should be written, reasonable, known, followed, and enforced. Without written standards, people are left to determine their own methods for performing activities; these may not always be safe and productive. Reasonable standards are more likely to be accepted and are therefore more easily enforced. If the standards are not known, employees cannot be expected to follow them. Adherence to standards must be enforced, even to the point where adherence becomes a condition of employment. Otherwise, these statements become guidelines, not standards.

Performance Standards dictate “How” NOT “What.”  

Performance Standards are goal-oriented, but they do not specify how the goal is achieved.  Typically they are vague, broad, and allow employees greater flexibility in complying with the standard.  Performance standards are usually preferable to specification standards.  Examples: personal protective equipment (PPE) standards

Specification Standards dictate “How” AND “What.”  Specification Standards establish specific methods used for hazard abatement. 

Workplace safety procedures and performance standards are designed to keep employees, visitors and customers safe while helping to reduce the stress associated with the work area. Company management should take the time to develop safety procedures at work that get the entire staff involved in making company safety a priority.

A basic element of the safety management system (SMS) that enables the setting of an organization’s safety objective and targets, as well as the identification of the necessary means and resources for their achievement.

The objective of safety planning is to achieve a continuous improvement of an organization’s safety performance by:

• Establishing the principle safety objective of the organization;
• Defining acceptable level(s) of safety of provided services;
• Establishing safety performance targets to ensure the achievement of the principle safety objective;
• Setting safety performance indicators to measure and demonstrate that the achieved level of safety meets the targets;
• At the early stages of SMS introduction – establishing an SMS implementation plan to ensure a consistent, focused and holistic approach to the development of the necessary organizational structure, processes and procedures for safety management.

STRUCTURE

5. Line Management Accountability and Responsibility – Best Practice

Committees and staff personnel can set policy and formulate goals and objectives, but effective implementation of safety can only be achieved when the line organization is actively engaged. Line management co-ordinates the overall safety effort, sets standards, creates work practices and procedures, and provides safety communication in two directions: up the line to top management and down the line to every wage-roll employee.

The only proven way to excel in safety management is for all members of the line organization to accept responsibility for their personal safety and for the safety of the people reporting to them. Members of line management need to be accountable for the safety performance of their organizations through regular performance appraisals.

Safety responsibility: the obligation to carry forward an assigned safety-related task to its successful conclusion. With responsibility goes authority to direct and take the necessary action to ensure success.

Safety accountability: the obligation to demonstrate the task achievement and take responsibility for the safety performance in accordance with agreed expectations. Accountability is the obligation to answer for an action.

Safety accountabilities and responsibilities should be allocated to the management and personnel involved in safety-related tasks. This includes allocation of accountabilities and responsibilities for the safety of operations (safety performance of the organization), but also for the implementation and operation of the safety management system (SMS) of the operator/service provider in line with the defined safety management roles. The former are often defined in a dedicated annex to the job description, whereas the latter are usually described in the Safety Management Manual (SMM) of the organization.

Leaders can draw on three principles to foster safety accountability in their organization: context, direction and tracking.

Context is about helping people understand their role in safety within the organization. 

Direction is about helping people develop clear objectives that tie to the safety goals of the organization and enabling them (through resources and coaching) to achieve those objectives

Tracking is about measuring performance against objectives through well-designed, simple and effective monitoring processes and supporting systems. 

6. Safety Personnel – Best Practice

While responsibility for safety rests with the line organization, the safety staff can be the key to the smooth discharge of that responsibility. The three principal jobs of a safety manager are to:

■ Facilitate the overall safety effort. He or she is the secretary of key safety policy committees, participates in many subcommittees, frequently audits work practices in the field, and analyses performance results.

■ Advise management on safety matters.

■ Consult with the line organization. Having participated in the development of safety policy, he or she is the ideal person to explain “why” and “how” to the line organization.

This job does not include implementing safety or enforcing regulations or policies.

The personnel to be recommended for selection of the safety functions should be as for any other job and must qualify for a number of minimum requirements if they are expected to do this work successfully. This work is not easy. The safety man has to inspect, teach, propose changes and guide investigations. In short, he has to do a lot of things which by their very nature are apt to provoke resentment in others as he is poking his nose into their business. And this is valid for the whole range of safety personnel from Department Head to Junior Safety Supervisor. The Safety Manager – the individual who is managing and providing oversight of the safety program – is the bureau’s point of contact for the bureau’s safety program, and performs the following functions:

• Provides appropriate safety and health, accident prevention, and investigation training for managers and supervisors.
  
  
• Assists management in the annual inspection of workplaces to assure safe and healthful conditions for workers. Prepares appropriate notices for management to issue for abatement of any identified hazards.
  
  
• Provides promotional materials and develops and administers recognition systems to promote safe and healthful work performance.
  
  
• Assists management and supervisors in investigating accidents and developing measures to prevent recurrences.
  
  
• Supports the Safety Management Information System (SMIS) by recording all accident reports in a timely, complete, and accurate manner.
  
  
• Assures that claims for injuries and illnesses posted in SMIS are posted in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration log.

7. Integrated Organization Structure – Best Practice

Each company should provide an organization to administer safety effectively, one that cascades from the top to the lowest level at the site. The safety organization should follow the line organization, include everyone, and provide the opportunity for groups to meet regularly to set policy and discuss safety-related matters. In practice, the organization for safety is comprised of safety committees at every organizational level and regular safety meetings that are attended by all employees.

8. Motivation and Awareness – Best Practice

The most important and often the most difficult task is motivation. In a motivated organization:

■ Management is fully involved in the safety effort.

■ Every employee is committed to good safety performance.

Every other aspect of safety reflects top management’s motivation and its influence on the line organization.

The best motivational method is to obtain employee involvement in the safety effort. This involvement can be accomplished through committees, special activities, and participation in safety meetings. The judicious use of discipline to secure compliance with standards of performance is also an appropriate means of motivation.

Workplace safety procedures establish your expectations for your employees, but you need them to actively participate and pay attention to the procedures to maintain a safe workplace. Engage your employees in safety awareness activities on a regular basis to keep the safety procedures fresh in their minds. A safer workplace helps reduce accidents and lower worker’s compensation claims.

To summaries it, managers and leaders must:

• Use positive reinforcement
• Involve employees
• Correct safety problems
• Set a positive example
• Enforce rules
• Ensure a disciplined process

In order for your safety program to work, your employees need to be motivated and committed. By making safety a priority from the beginning of the hiring process, using positive reinforcement to thank and educate, and by listening to and taking action with employee feedback, you will be on track towards a safer and more compliant workforce.

Processes and Actions 

9. Effective Communication – Best Practice

Safety communications are vital. A high level of communication facilitates the administration of an effective program. Communication includes:

■ Developing a meaningful message.

■ Delivering the message.

■ Making sure that the message is understood.

Senior management plays an important role in developing the message; the entire line organization delivers the message and ensures that it is understood. To be complete, communication must flow in two directions: from management to employees and from employees back to management.

Remember the four keys to success. Effective safety communication is:
1. Interactive. It flows both ways. You speak about safety and you listen to employees’ concerns and suggestions.
2. Informative. It tells employees what they need to know to work safely under all conditions.
3. Positive. It focuses on the exchange of ideas and information to improve workplace safety and prevent accidents and illness.
4. Productive. It allows you to interact successfully with employees and spread your safety message to all who need to hear it.

Watch out for communication barriers. Unfortunately, numerous obstacles can cause communication to break down. For example:
–If too much information is being communicated all at once, it can be hard for employees to absorb all those different messages at one time. 
–If your message lacks clarity, is confusing or ambiguous, what a worker actually hears might be quite different from what you intended to say.
–If expectations are not clearly defined, you may be unpleasantly surprised by the results. It is important to know and express what you expect to happen as a result of your communication.
–If you communicate a safety message without taking the time to listen carefully to the response of employees, the communication is incomplete. Remember, you have to speak and listen for communication to be successful.
–If you don’t take employees’ concerns and priorities into account, they might not listen to what you have to say.

And don’t forget that effective safety communication always begins with your message. The message is the safety information you want to transfer from your head into the minds and hearts of your employees.
–Before you speak, think carefully about what you want to say. Be as clear as possible about each of the points you want to make. 
–Organize your thoughts into a logical sequence for communication. 
–Consider your expectations. Do you expect employees to take some action as a result of what you tell them? If so, be sure to be clear about what that action is.

–Keep your communications simple. One safety message at a time, simply and directly stated, is more likely to be heard and understood.
–Be as precise as possible. Use concrete language and examples to explain what you mean so that you leave no room for misinterpretation.

– Be concise. Say only what needs to be said to get your point across. A lot of extra words will only confuse the issue. 
–Demonstrate when appropriate. Employees generally learn better and retain more of the safety information they see and hear. 
–Repeat your message as needed. Studies show that a safety message often needs to be repeated on several different occasions to get through to employees.

10. Training and Development – Best Practice

Continuous safety training is important for all employees. Therefore, it should be directed toward:

■ The new employee.

■ An employee who has transferred from another site.

■ An employee who has moved from another area on the site.

■ Supervision.

■ The longer service employee (refresher training).

■ Contractor employees (as appropriate).

Through continuous training, management can present information, update skills, and encourage and reinforce a positive attitude toward safety.

Safety training should be a part of every employee’s basic job training. This reinforces the belief that safety is an essential part of the job. By focusing on job training needs, you will identify safety training needs. You want your employees to learn what they need to know to perform their jobs. 

Training does not solve all problems. Sometimes the problem may be work procedures, equipment, or lack of employee motivation. Ask yourself, “Could the employee do the job if he wanted to?” If the answer is “yes” then training may be less effective (but can still be used). “Does the employee have the skills or knowledge to perform the job?” If the answer is “no” then training will probably benefit the employee. Training may need to be done due to:
• Employee’s lack of knowledge;
• Employee’s lack of skills;
• New machinery or equipment;
• New procedures or job change; and
• Any aspects of behavior needing to be changed.

All new employees need to participate in an overall safety training orientation class. Every employee must be trained to be aware of and understand the hazards in their workplace. After you have determined that training will correct the problems and/or meet the legally mandated training, the next step is to identify the training needs.

Company’s capacity to grow is defined by its openness to learning. Getting, keeping and developing the right employees is key to business success. With the right training resources, your business will be able to improve on-the-job performance and get the very best from employees.

11. Incident Investigation – Best Practice

A sound safety management program will include a system for reporting and

comprehensively investigating injuries and serious incidents. By conducting investigations,

management can determine the underlying causes of injuries and eliminate them, thus preventing their recurrence.

It is important to ensure that all employees follow the resulting recommendations. When

employees see management taking quick, corrective action, they will conclude that safety has a high priority. Management commitment in this area will do much to eliminate injury through prevention.

When an accident happens at your workplace, it is critical to conduct an accident investigation to determine the root cause of the events that led to the accident or injury. The point of the investigation should never be to assign blame, but rather to uncover the factors that led to accident so you can take corrective action to prevent it from happening again. 

The steps to conducting an effective accident investigation are:

1. Provide first aid and/or medical care to the injured persons and take action to prevent further injury or damage. This is the first priority.
2. Report the accident as required by your company’s policies.
3. Investigate the accident as soon as possible after it occurs.  This allows you to observe the conditions as they were at the time of the accident, prevents the disturbance of evidence, and allows you to identify witnesses.  You will need to gather physical evidence, take photographs, and interview witnesses to understand the chain of events that led to the accident.
4. Identify the causes of the accident.  Note that there are usually multiple causes.
5. Report your findings in a written report.  in preparing the report, it is helpful to prepare a step-by-step account or timeline working back from the moment of the accident, listing all possible causes at each step.  This account can be helpful in preparing the final report, which should clearly explain the evidence for your conclusions.
6. Develop a plan for corrective action to prevent the accident from happening again.  These actions should be specific, constructive, address the root causes of the accident, and address the causes described in the report.
7. Implement your corrective action plan. It is helpful to set a deadline for implementation of corrective actions and there should be monitoring in place to ensure that they are completed.
8. Follow up to evaluate the effectiveness of the corrective actions taken.
9. Make adjustments as needed to continue to improve.

12. Observations and Inspections – Best Practice

Studies have shown that more than 90 percent of all injuries and incidents are the result of unsafe acts. A program that concentrates on eliminating these acts greatly improves safety performance. Field audits that focus on people working can prevent incidents by alerting workers and managers to an unsafe work habit or act before it causes an injury.

Accidents are caused by unsafe workplace conditions or unsafe behavior. Inspections and observations allow you to be proactive by evaluating how safe your workplace is instead of waiting until someone gets hurt.

What is a safety inspection?
An inspection is a formalized procedure for identifying workplace hazards. There are three main types of inspections: one-time inspections, pre-use inspections, and periodic inspections.

What is the purpose of safety observations?
The purpose of an observation is to identify and reinforce safe behaviors and eliminate unsafe behaviours.