Essential Elements of an Occupational Safety and Health Management System

Policy

OSH policy :the employer, in consultation with workers and their representatives, should set out in writing an OSH policy.

Worker Participation: Worker participation is an essential element of the OSH management system in the workplace.

Organizing

Responsibility and accountability: The employer should have overall responsibility for the protection of workers' safety and health, provide leadership for OSH activities and ensure that OSH is a line management responsibility which is known and accepted at all levels.

Competence and training: The necessary OSH competence requirements should be defined by the employer, and arrangements established and maintained to ensure that all persons are competent to carry out the safety and health aspects of their duties and responsibilities.

Documentation: According to the size of the workplace and the nature of its activities, OSH related documentation should be established, maintained, reviewed, revised as necessary; be communicated an readily accessible to all appropriate or affected workers in the workplace. The documentation may cover the OSH policy, assigned responsibilities; significant workplace hazards and risks and arrangements for their prevention and control; records of OSH activities, work-related injuries, ill-health, disease, and incidents, OSH national laws and regulations; records of exposures, working environment monitoring, health surveillance data; results of monitoring; technical and administrative procedures, instructions and other relevant internal guidance documents.

Communication: Arrangements and procedures should be established and maintained for receiving, documenting and responding appropriately to internal and external communications related to OSH; ensuring the internal communication of OSH information between relevant levels and functions in the workplace; and ensuring that the concerns, ideas and inputs of workers and their representatives on OSH matters are received, considered and responded to.

Planning and implementation

Initial Review: The existing OSH management system and relevant arrangements should be evaluated by an initial review, as appropriate to provide a baseline from which continual improvement of the OSH management system can be measured. In the case where no OSH management system exists, the initial review should serve as a basis for establishing an OSH management system. The initial review should be carried out by competent persons, in consultation with workers and/or their representatives, as appropriate.

System planning, development and implementation: The purpose of planning should be to create an OSH management system that supports: (a) as the minimum, compliance with national laws and regulations; (b) the elements of the OSH management system; and (c) continual improvement in OSH performance. Arrangements should be made for adequate and appropriate OSH planning, based on the results of the initial review, subsequent reviews or other available data. These planning arrangements should contribute to the protection of safety and health at work, and should cover the development and implementation of all the OSH management system‘s elements.

Occupational safety and health objectives: Consistent with the OSH policy and based on the initial or subsequent reviews, measurable OSH objectives and requirements specific to the workplace should be established; these should be consistent with national laws and regulations;, focused towards continually improving workers' OSH protection to achieve the best OSH performance; realistic and achievable; documented, and communicated to all relevant workplace functions and levels; periodically evaluated and if necessary updated.

Hazard prevention

Prevention and Control Measures: Hazards and risks to workers' safety and health should be identified, prioritized and assessed on an ongoing basis. In order of priority, preventive and protective measures should (a) eliminate the hazard/risk; (b) control the hazard/risk at the source through appropriate measures; (c) minimize the hazard/risk by the design of safe work systems; and (d) where residual hazards/risks cannot be controlled by collective measures, the employer should provide for appropriate personal protective equipment, including clothing, at no cost, and should implement measures to ensure its use and maintenance.

Hazard prevention and control procedures should be established and should: (a) be adapted to the hazards and risks encountered by the organization;(b) be reviewed and modified, if necessary, on a regular basis; (c) comply with national laws and regulations, and reflect good practice; and (d) consider the current state of knowledge, including information or reports from organizations, such as labour inspectorates, occupational safety and health services, and other services as appropriate.

Management of Change: The impact on OSH of internal changes (such as those due to staffing, new processes, working procedures, organizational structures or acquisitions) and of external changes (for example, as a result of amendments of national laws and regulations, organizational mergers, and developments in OSH knowledge and technology) should be evaluated and appropriate preventive steps taken prior to the introduction of changes. A workplace hazard identification and risk assessment should be carried out before any modification or introduction of new work methods, materials, processes or machinery. Such assessment should be done in consultation with and involving workers and their representatives, and the safety and health committee, where appropriate. The implementation of a “decision to change” should ensure that all affected members of the organization are properly informed and trained.

Emergency Preparedness and Response: Emergency prevention, preparedness and response arrangements should be established and maintained through continual internal training and information, and communication with external emergency services. These arrangements should identify the potential for accidents and emergency situations, and address the prevention of OSH risks associated with them. They should be established in cooperation with external emergency services and other bodies where applicable.

Procurement: Procedures should be established and maintained to ensure that: (a) compliance with workplace safety and health requirements is identified, evaluated and incorporated into purchasing and leasing specifications; (b) national laws and regulations and the workplace’s own OSH requirements are identified prior to the procurement of goods and services; and (c) arrangements are made to achieve conformance to the requirements prior to their use.

Contracting: Arrangements should be established and maintained for ensuring that the workplace’s safety and health requirements, are applied to contractors and their workers.

Evaluation

Performance Monitoring and Measurement: Procedures to monitor, measure and record OSH performance on a regular basis should be developed, established and periodically reviewed. Responsibility, accountability and authority for monitoring at different levels in the management structure should be allocated.

Investigation of work-related injuries, ill health, diseases and incidents and their impact on OSH performance: The investigation of the origin and underlying causes of work-related injuries, ill health, diseases and incidents should identify any failures in the OSH management system and should be documented. Such investigations should be carried out by competent persons, with the appropriate participation of workers and their representatives. The results should be communicated to the safety and health committee, where it exists, and the committee should make appropriate recommendations. The investigation data and the recommendations should be communicated to appropriate persons for corrective action, included in the management review and should be considered for continual improvement activities. Reports produced by external investigative agencies, such as inspectorates and social insurance institutions, should be acted upon in the same manner as internal investigations, taking into account confidentiality.

Audit: Arrangements to conduct periodic audits of each of the elements of the OSH management system are to be established in order to determine the overall performance of the system and its effectiveness in protecting the safety and health of workers and preventing incidents. An audit policy and programme should be developed, which includes a designation of auditor competency, the audit scope, the frequency of audits, audit methodology and reporting.

Management Review: Management reviews should be conducted periodically to evaluate the overall strategy of the OSH management system to determine whether it meets planned performance objectives and workplace needs; should be based on data collected and actions taken during the period under consideration, and on the identification of what aspects and priorities should be modified to improve performance and achieve objectives.

Action for Improvement

Preventive and Corrective Action: Arrangements should be established and maintained for preventive and corrective action resulting from the OSH management system’s performance monitoring and measurement, OSH management system audits and management reviews. When the evaluation of the OSH management system or other sources shows that preventive and protective measures for hazards and risks are inadequate or likely to become inadequate, the corrective measures should be addressed according to the recognized hierarchy of prevention and control measures, and completed and documented, as appropriate and in a timely manner.

Continual Improvement: Arrangements should be established and maintained for the continual improvement of the relevant elements of the OSH management system and the system as a whole. These arrangements should take into account of objectives, and all the information and data acquired under each element of the system, including results of assessments, performance measurements, investigations, recommendations of audits, outcomes of management reviews, recommendations for improvement, changes in national laws, regulations and collective agreements, new relevant information, any significant technical or administrative modifications in the activities of the workplace, and the results of health protection and promotion programmes. The safety and health processes and performance of the workplace should be compared with others in order to improve health and safety performance