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OHSMS and Safety Culture
What is an occupational health and safety management system(OHSMS)?One difficultly in evaluating the effectiveness of OHSMS lies in the different meanings given to the team .Finding agreement upon criteria for effectiveness, or methods of measure-ment and evaluation is especially hard where basic disagreement exists upon what an OHSMS .
1、The General Characteristics Of an OHSMS
All OHSMS owe something to the legacy of general system theory. Systems theory suggests that there should be four general requirements for an OHSMS, although how there requirements are met in practice allows for considerable diversity. The four general requirements are as follows.
1）System objectives.
2）Specification of system elements and their inter-relationship; not all systems need have the same elements.
3）Determining the relationship of the OHSMS to other systems (including the general management system, and the regulatory system , but also technology and work organization ).
4）Requirements for system maintenance (which may be internal, linked to a review phase , or external , linked for example to industry policies that support OHS best practice; system maintenance may vary between systems).
Several Australian authorities upon OHSMS have given definitions broadly consistent with these general system requirements. Thus Bottomley notes what makes an OHSMS a system “is the deliberate linking and sequencing of processes to achieve specific objectives and to create a repeatable and identifiable way of managing OHS. Corrective actions … (are also )central to a systematic approach .”
Warwick Pearse also emphasises systemic linkages, defining an OHSMS as “distinct elements which cover the key range of activities required to manage occupational health and safety. These are inter-linked, and the whole thing is driven by feedback loops.”
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Similarly, Gallagher defines an OHSMS as “…a combination of the planning and review, the management organization arrangements, the consultative arrangements, and the specific program elements that work together in an integrated way to improve health and safety performance.” 2、Voluntary Or Mandatory Implementation Methods
One way that OHSMS differ arises from the various methods of implementation. Frick and Wren distinguish three types—voluntary, mandatory and hybird. Voluntary systems exist where enterprises adopt OHSMS on their owe volition. Often this is to implement strategic objectives relating to employee welfare or good corporate citizenship, although there may be other motives such as reducing insurance costs. In contrast, mandatory systems have evolved in a number of European countries where legislation requires adoption of a risk assessment system. Quasimandatory methods may also exist where external commercial pressures take the place of legislative requirements. Thus many businesses adopt OHSMS to comply with the requirements of customers and suppliers, principal contractors and other commercial bodies. Hybrid methods are said to entail a mixture of voluntary motives and legislative requirements.
3. Management Systems or Systematic Management
Following from their distinction between voluntary and mandatory OHSMS, Frick and Wren also separate occupational health and safety “management systems”, and the “management systems” of occupational health and safety. Specifically ,the former have been characterized as: market-based, promoted typically by consulting firms, and with usually highly formalized prescriptions on how to integrate OHSM within large and complex organizations and also comprehensive demands on documentation.
This “management systems” from must meet stringent criteria. Where these requirements of a “systems” are not met, then the term is said to be inapplicable. On the other hand, “systematic management” is described as “… a limited number of mandated principles for a systematic management of OHS, applicable to all types of employers including the small ones”.
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This approach stems from methods of regulation found in Europe as well as Australia, where businesses, including smaller ones, are encouraged or required to comply with a less demanding framework than “management systems”. One example of this simpler regulatory framework might be the risk assessment principles within the 1989/391 European Union Framework Directive.
Support for such a loose approach to OHSM also exists in Australia. One employer expert on OHS defined systems simply as “just a word for what you do to manage safety”. Consistent with this is Bottomley’s all-encompassing approach which allows that “…an OHSMS can be simple or complex, it can be highly documented or sparingly described, and it can be home grown or based on an available model”. An example of a relatively simple “systematic”approach to the management of occupational health and safety is to be found in “Small Business Safety Solutions”-a booklet for small business published by the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
This advocates a four step process as follows:
Step1: Commitment to a Safe Workplace(framing a policy based on consultation). Step2: Recognising and Removing Dangers(using a danger identification list) Step3:Maintaining a Safe Workplace (including safety checks, maintenance, reporting dangers, information and training, supervision ,accident investigation, and emergency planning).
Step4: Safety Records and Information (including records and standards required to be kept by law)
It is debatable whether such a framework for “systematic management” in a small business can include all the elements of planning and accountability that are essential to a “management system” in a large business.
4 . System Characteristics : managerialist and Participative Models
Within “management systems” two different models can be found . The first variant stems from what Nielsen terms “rational organisation theory” ( Taylorist and bureaucratic models of organisation ) . Rational organisation theory is associated with top down managerialist models of OHSMS such as Du Pont . Some authorities now
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consider most voluntary systems to be managerialist . Thus Frick. et al . observe that “ . . . most voluntary OHSM systems define top management as the ( one and only ) actor”. Conversely, an alternative participative model of “management systems” can be traced to socio-technical systems theory, which emphasises organisational interventions based on analysis of the inter-relationships of technology , the orientation of participants , and organisational structure .
The strengths of this typology are two-fold . First , it is grounded in the literature that discusses alternative approaches to managing OHS and different control strategies , and it reflects the principal debates in that literature . Second , it can be operationalised through empirical tests to see which type of OHSMS performs best . The typology also faces a difficulty in the fact that the “ safe place control strategy “ is mandatory in Australia and should be found in all workplaces . There in not , therefore . a clear choice between two mutually exclusive control strategies ; the workplace with dominant safe person characteristics should also be implementing safe place characteristics .
5 . Degree of Implementation: Quality Levels
Frick and Wren expand upon their distinction between mandatory and voluntary OHSMS to further identify three levels of systems objectives , drawn from the literature on product quality control , that represent different levels of achievement and measures of OHSM performance.
6 . degree of Implementation: Introductory and Advanced Systems
The idea that there may be different levels of OHSM has been interpreted another way in Australia where performance levers in some programs are explicitly developmental ( the business graduating up an ascending ladder as it demonstrates compliance with the requirements of each successive lever ) .
One example of Australian program with developmental steps is the South Australian Safety Achiever Business System ( SABS ) ( formerly known as the Safety Achiever Bonus Scheme ) . The program specifies five standards ( commitment and policy , planning implementation , measurement and management systems review and implementation ) linked in a continuous improvement cycle . Three “levels”of
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