Implementing a health and safety management system

Getting started with a health and safety management system

Has your business considered investing in a health and safety management system? If yes, have you explored ISO 45001?

ISO 45001 was designed to support organisations in enhancing workplace security and lowering employee injuries. It supports employee wellbeing and wellness initiatives and aids organisations in proactively preventing illness and injury. The globally recognised ISO certification; ISO 45001 is designed for businesses that have implemented an efficient OH&S management system developed for evaluating risk and tracking workplace.

In addition to identifying hazards and health risks and putting controls and procedures in place to lessen the risk of harm, ISO 45001 supports the creation of health and safety policies and objectives.

If your employees feel secure at work, your company’s productivity and level of trust will increase. When accidents, claims, and expenses are reduced, revenues increase, and your workforce is kept safe. It encourages engaged employee participation, resulting in a safer workplace and reduced operational disturbance from worker illness or illness-related absence.

Compliant has a proven track record for helping businesses UK wide and beyond to implement ISO 45001. Our trusted ISO consultants can support businesses of every size in getting started. We work with companies; using documentation and processes and that business’ already have in place and providing templates and procedures for items that are still needed to ensure audit success.

Discover more about ISO 45001 here.

Why invest in a health and safety management system such as ISO 45001?

Implementing a health and safety management system such as ISO 45001 is an effective strategy for lowering risk, sustaining a culture of safety, and boosting productivity. If you have any enquiries about health and safety management systems or ISO 45001 we can help. Compliant has a proven track record and has helped a range of businesses in getting started with this popular ISO certification. Discover the benefits of ISO 45001 in a previous article of ours here.

Released in March 2018, the standard replaces OHSAS 18001 and allows management system integration with other ISO standards, which provides a more streamlined approach to multiple system management.

Your business doesn’t need to manage health and safety in an expensive, or time-consuming way. Working with Compliant makes it simpler than you might imagine. We can help you identify, manage, and control health and safety hazards and become certified to an international occupational health and safety standard.

Organisations of various sizes and business sectors are already investing in this this standard to support them in delivering services as safely as possible. If you don’t take ownership of occupational health and safety in your company, you run the risk of suffering severe repercussions, including the safety of your employees as well as significant financial fines. As a result, there may be negative effects like reduced financial performance or reputational harm.

HSE explains that a formal management system or framework can help you effectively manage health and safety. HSE’s view of ISO 45001 is as follows:

“Implementing ISO 45001 may help your organisation demonstrate compliance with health and safety law. But, in some respects, it goes beyond what the law requires, so consider carefully whether to adopt it.

If your organisation already has a developed health and safety management structure, or you’re familiar with other management standards, it may be straightforward for you to adopt ISO 45001.

HSE’s guide on managing for health and safety (HSG 65) may help your organisation as it provides a clear process-based approach to risk management. However, adopting a formalised management system approach, whether HSG65 or ISO 45001, may not be the most appropriate model for your businesses, particularly if it’s small or low-risk.”

Regardless of a company’s size, it is best practice to have health and safety policies in place for employee wellbeing.

But how do you get started with a workplace health and safety management system?

Stages of a health and safety management system

HSE recommends the Plan, Do, Check, Act approach for managing for health and safety. This popular approach can help you:

1. Set a clear direction for your business with regards to health and safety
2. Ensure that every member of staff is accountable
3. Treat health and safety management as an integral part of good management generally, rather than as a stand-alone system
4. Achieve a balance between the systems and behavioural aspects of management

Stage 1: Plan

1. Create your policy: Clearly define the course you want your company to take. To ensure that everyone in your company is aware of health and safety in the workplace, be sure to distribute it to all levels. Make sure your health and safety policy and information is simple to find and refer to, you should also include it in your employee handbook. If you need support with this Compliant provide templates, including a company handbook.
2. Plan your policy: Make your policy adaptable by working on it. Any changes made to a business will not be accommodated by a static health and safety system. You must keep your staff informed about any policy changes you make, even if it’s merely by sending an email around the company. As part of your commitment to continuous improvement ISO 45001 involves updating your documents on an annual basis including dates, review dates and version numbers.

Stage 2: Do

1. Review risks: Investigate and determine whether there are major dangers at work using risk profiling. Examine what could cause an accident, how it might cause that accident, and risk management strategies.
2. Organise: This is the stage where you engage your team in meaningful communication. Make certain that everyone accepts and comprehends your policies and methods.

Get input from your team to keep them involved in your system and business development. This involvement makes sure that everyone is aware of how it impacts them and how to report it.

3. Training: Once everyone is aware of your plan, put it into action by providing the necessary training to implement the policies inside your company. Ensure that the necessary tools and equipment are available for enforcing policies. Creating eyewash stations and first aid kits, for instance. Our BSI trained Lead Auditor can support with recommendations to ensure that your site is safe and secure.

Stage 3: Check

1. Check: Make sure your policies and system have been fully implemented while measuring performance. Check to see if the identified hazards are being adequately addressed and managed. If they aren’t, evaluate your rules and make sure the risks are taken into consideration.
2. Participation: Encourage an open-door approach to reporting accidents and events during the investigation process. Confirm with your team that any reported accidents and incidents will be thoroughly investigated by those in charge of health and safety. Logs and reviews of incidents and accidents and how your business dealt with them will be requested on audits.

Stage 4: Act

1. Review your system: Schedule a time to carefully assess how it is operating once the system has been in place for a predetermined period of time. Look up any recorded mishaps and occurrences to see what you can take away from them.
2. Adapt: After reviewing your system, make any necessary adjustments.

Why health and safety systems are important

The top three reasons for implementing a health and safety management system are:

• Legal reasons
• Moral reasons
• Financial reasons

You must have a health and safety policy in place, according to the Health and Safety at Work Act of 1974. However, it doesn’t specify that a particular system must be in place.

These systems may be required by certain legal specifications as well as health and safety regulations.

Making reporting simple and transparent: It’s crucial to keep reporting processes simple enough for all employees to grasp. It not only keeps everyone at work feeling comfortable, but it can also avoid paying hefty fines.

Do you need a health and safety management system?

Legally, a formal management system is not mandatory, however it is best practice to record health and safety risks and controls to manage those risks.

Effective management is crucial to ensuring that everyone is working in a safe and secure environment.

HSE explains that “an employer does not have to take measures to avoid or mitigate the risk if they are technically impracticable or if the time, trouble, or cost of the measures would be grossly disproportionate to the danger,”.

According to the act, “it shall be the duty of every employer to prepare and as often as may be appropriate revise a written statement of his general policy with respect to the health and safety at work of his employees and the organisation and arrangements for the time being in force for carrying out that policy, and to bring the statement and any revision of it to the notice of all of his employees”.

Taking a risk-based approach to your health and safety management system

The need to use a risk-based strategy while creating and implementing a health and safety management system is closely related to the emphasis on organisational context. To ensure that your health and safety management system can produce the desired results, you must identify risks and opportunities and effective actions to mitigate those risks. You must also have a process should an accident or incident occur and records of how you are following up on these.

Risks and opportunities relevant to or influenced by the organisational context are to be included in your list. The organisation must develop plans for responding to these risks and opportunities, integrate those plans into your health and safety management system procedures, and assess the success of those responses.

Implementation of a health and safety management system with Compliant

Organisations should establish the competencies and support systems required to accomplish the safety and health policy’s objectives and targets in order to implement it effectively. Compliant can support with setting this up and offer extremely competitive rates. We recommend all employees be encouraged to work properly and to safeguard their long-term health, not just to prevent accidents. Recommendations should:

1. Be supported by effective communication and the promotion of competence, which enables all employees and their representatives to make an accountable and knowledgeable contribution to the safety and health effort. The management system should be underpinned by effective staff involvement and participation through appropriate consultation, the use of the safety committee where it exists, and the safety representation system.

Implementing a safety and health policy through an efficient safety and health programme should follow a planned and systematic manner.

Your safety and health policy should be implemented in a planned and methodical manner. The goal is to reduce risks. Methods of risk assessment should be used to establish priorities and goals for removing hazards and lowering risks. Risks should be reduced whenever possible by carefully choosing and designing the facilities, tools, and procedures. If dangers cannot be completely removed, they should be reduced by using physical controls, safe work practices, or, as a last resort, PPE. It is important to set performance standards that may be utilised to gauge success. It is important to identify concrete steps that will help to foster a culture of safety and health.

Your organisation’s vision, values, and health and safety convictions should be understood by all. A supportive health and safety culture is fostered through senior managers’ active and visible leadership.

If your business needs templates to implement any of the recommendations above Compliant can help. Our thorough and professional management systems have a wide range of templates and a proven track record.

Measuring your health and safety management system’s performance

When implementing a health and safety management system your organisation needs to assess, track, and measure its performance in terms of safety and health. Performance can be compared to established benchmarks to determine when and where it needs to be improved. The efficiency of the health and safety management system is revealed by active self-monitoring.

Self-monitoring examines both the hardware (buildings, plants, and materials) and the software (people, procedures and systems, including individual behaviour and performance). Reactive monitoring should look into accidents, illnesses, or other situations that could have resulted in harm or loss in order to determine why controls failed. The aim of active and reactive monitoring’s goals is to identify any underlying reasons and their effects on the design and functionality of the safety and health management system. To identify the immediate causes of inadequate performance.

Getting started with your health and safety management system

Achieving a safe and dependable environment for employees and business stakeholders is made possible by implementing ISO 45001. The standard enables businesses and senior management to enhance their health and safety operations. Meeting the prerequisites guarantees that you’ll keep an eye out for trends and weigh your options.

As a business with an ISO 45001 certification, you will take proactive measures to attempt and reduce the possibility of significant risks. It is crucial that organisations with significant physical demands, such factories and oil refineries, have an active OH&S management system in place because these organisations are more likely to suffer major injuries.

If you would like more information on how to get certified, we’d be happy to arrange a call to talk about your options. Alternatively, if you would like a quotation at any point just fill in our FREE quote calculator.