THE TRAITS OF AN EFFECTIVE SWMS: MAKE YOUR SWMS WORK FOR YOU

If you have the privilege of influencing safety compliance in the construction industry you will have the inevitable love or hate relationship with a document called the SWMS or (JSA, JSEA, JHA, SHESWMS etc). I have reviewed, assessed, compiled (with the work crew) and observed countless SWMS’. From being regarded by many as a mere requirement to get started with the job to some seeing it as nothing more than a legislated burden, the real challenge is to make the SWMS an effective tool for workers to better manage workplace hazards.
I have put forward key considerations to breathing life into these documents and thereby making them more effective. Here are the traits of an effective SWMS:
- Let the SWMS cover one task at a time. Don't try to conquer the world with one mega SWMS. Impressive looking SWMS will not necessarily prevent hazards from manifesting themselves out in the field.
- Really involve the workers that are going to perform the task. From the outset, in any task based safety initiative, involvement at this level is necessary because it is the workers that are closest to the safety issues. They have the most detailed views of what actually goes on at the work site and their buy in is crucial to an effective SWMS.
Involvement brings ownership of the ongoing SWMS process and thus long term employee engagement in its maintenance. This connection has to be strong. The adage "too many cooks spoil the broth" does not apply to identifying and controlling hazards.
- Thoroughly research what legislation (particularly Australian Standards apply) specifically to this task. Actually read them and highlight applicable requirements to the task at hand. Make sure that these requirements are recorded in the SWMS. Do not concentrate on general/common standards like PPE standards, management standards (AS4801etc)
- Brainstorm the task steps with the work crew. I like to make the first task step “Access and egress". This ensures that task planning starts by assessing any barriers to safe access to where the activity will be conducted.
- Emergency response is to be assessed through each task step. Noise, poor lighting as well as other factors may affect the workers' ability to adequately respond to an emergency.
- Each task step should be succinctly recorded and include who will be conduction the action, any chemicals to be used as well as any plant or machinery that will be used. In most cases the description of the task step would include a verb in the sentence such as "install", "unscrew" or "validate". Workers reading the SWMS out in field must clearly understand what must be done, by whom and how.
- It is important to note that each potential hazard identified is individually rated and has corresponding controls. Rating a group of hazard or controls runs the risk of having the hazard being underrated and thus not receiving the attention it may need.
- Always consider the worst case scenario when establishing risk ratings for hazards. Unlike a chef overcooking the roast, "overcooking" the risk rating will not tarnish the SWMS.
- Ambiguous or misleading wording is to be avoided. Wording as controls like "wear appropriate PPE" or "wear suitable gloves" leaves the control up to interpretation.
- Every individual control measure must be evaluated against the Hierarchy of Controls and where the control involves and action this action must allocated to a specific individual or group. This challenges the workers to think outside of the box, so to speak, and to think of controls that could possibly eliminate, isolate or engineer out the hazard (Above The Line Controls). The natural tendency is assign PPE as a primary control but visiting each of the eliminate, substitute, isolate, engineer and administrative controls in the hierarchy explores methods of actually dealing with the hazard.
- Safety Data Sheets (SDS) for chemicals must consulted and the required controls extracted out of the SDS' and placed into the relevant controls corresponding to where those chemicals are used in the task steps. The current controls should not just say "refer to the attached SDS" or “comply with the attached SDS”. Workers are not going to sift through 16 or so pages of an attached SDS to try and look for a control. Attachments like SDS' should be limited because they make the SWMS bulky and often get lost as the SWMS goes out into the work area. Also pay special attention to make sure that the SDS used is not older than the legal timeframe of 5 years.
- The SWMS should have a simple and easy to understand matrix or other system to arrive at a risk rating.
- The layout should be uncluttered and with limited fancy artwork, graphics and multi- coloured displays. The content needs to be creative not the layout.
- The SWMS' equivalent of real estate's "location, location, location " is "review, review, review." The document must be dynamic and ever changing when required. If it gathers dust in the toolbox or cobwebs in the filing cabinet it may as well be used as a door stopper. At least as a door stopper it could prevent a finger getting caught in the door.

Remember that the SWMS must be by the workers, for the workers and to the workers.
If the SWMS was like a plate of food served up in a restaurant then management and safety professionals would be the garnish added to the final dish to complete it, with the actual ingredients coming from the workers themselves.
If you adopt these fundamental traits then you're well on your way to making a Safe Work Method Statement your sure fire mission statement and an effective tool in combating hazards.