5 Best Practices for Conducting Effective Safety Management Reviews

In a constantly evolving business environment, business strategies and workplace safety policies should be reviewed and brought up to date. Safety policy is a mandatory requirement for any employer with 5 or more employees. It should be implemented as appropriate to the risks in the particular industry and the role of the employees.

More importantly, a safety policy is not a static document. Every time there is a change in the regulatory requirement or business processes and workflows, the nature of risks may change. The policy will then have to be reviewed, appropriate changes introduced, documented, and implemented. The ISO 45001 standard for Occupational Health and Safety mandates top management review of the safety policy for continual improvement to ensure the health, safety, and wellbeing of the employees.

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The Importance of Management Reviews for Continuous Improvement of Your Organization’s Safety Management System

A management review enables the management to assess whether the organization could meet its policy and objectives for workplace safety in a consistent manner. This can help it assess the safety management system’s effectiveness, adequacy, and suitability in meeting the risks unique to its business. In case of any gaps, it provides the management with an opportunity to revise the processes and/or systems to fulfill the gaps. More importantly, it plays a key role in enabling a more coordinated effort among people, processes, and systems.

It also helps the management assess its growth and whether its approach towards health & safety can continue to be effective as the organization scales up across locations, new geographies, business areas, etc.

Thirdly, this is also a time to ensure that the policy is aligned with the relevant regulatory standards and any subsequent revisions that can impact its compliance and the safety of workers.

Management Review Best Practices

In a number of companies, management reviews happen, and it ends up being a tick-this-off effort. But are they effective? Does it drive improvement? ISO specifies that, for the health and safety management system to be effective, the management needs to follow evidence-based decision-making.

Therefore, it recommends the following:

• Periodic review of the organization’s safety management
• Implement the decisions made during the review based on analysis and evaluation
• Assess whether the safety policy and its implementation meet regulatory needs
• Identify areas of improvement and make changes for continual improvement
• Document the management reviews

For this process to be effective and meaningful, some of the best practices the organization must follow include:

Best Practice #1 – Collaborative Involvement of Executive Leadership, H&S leaders, and Other Relevant Stakeholders

Setting an example and giving the review its due importance will lend weight to the safety management review. Safety is not just a safety leader or top management activity but requires every manager and employee to be equally committed to it.

Best Practice #2 – Set the Goals of the Review

Setting an agenda, establishing the objectives, and communicating these to all meeting participants is the first step. Ensure that the following items are on the meeting agenda:

• Assess the adequacy of health and safety performance
• Make the entire process data-driven
• Conduct the review with the help of a next-generation solution like ComplianceQuest’s EHS Management Review Software
• Ensure that the system is effective in meeting health and safety goals
• Ensure compliance
• Set standards
• Identify ways to improve performance
• Identify and respond to changes
• Learn from experience

Best Practice #3 – Ensure Access to Data

The effectiveness of the safety management system and its compliance with legal requirements need to be measured to get an objective view of its performance. Therefore, it is necessary to have the necessary data and clearly defined KPIs to be able to evaluate and identify gaps. This will enable ensuring compliance and continual improvement and should include:

• Reported injuries, illnesses, property damage, and near misses
• Incident investigation results
• Performance monitoring and measurement
• Audit findings

Best Practice #4 – Assign Roles & Responsibilities

Right from identifying who will conduct the review to who will be responsible for the various safety-related activities decided during the review is essential for their successful implementation. These include,

• Proactive monitoring
• Responding to incidents
• Collecting and analyzing data on accidents/incidents/near-misses
• Data on training
• Inspection reports
• Investigation reports
• Assessing risks
• Documenting the decisions

Best Practice #5 – Ensure Implementation of Remedial Actions

The decisions taken during the review meeting need to be implemented at the policy as well as the ground level. These need to be communicated to the different teams impacted by the changes and reporting processes modified accordingly. If training is required, then that needs to be planned and executed as well.

Make Management Reviews Efficient, Effective & Collaborative with ComplianceQuest

Right from scheduling the review meetings to accessing enterprise-wide safety-related data and ensuring implementation of the recommended changes can be simplified and made more effective by automating the process. ComplianceQuest’s Management Review Software enables continuous improvement of the safety management system and compliance with ISO, OSHA, and other such regulations and standards. It allows access to all safety-related data, reports from incident investigations and audits, and meetings-related documentation for analysis and informed decision-making. In addition, it helps to automate the management review meetings right from scheduling and inviting the relevant people to set the agenda, assigning responsibilities, tracking progress and ensuring the action is taken as planned.

One of the key features of the CQ Management Review Software is its Safety Control Tower that is not only a dashboard of all H&S metrics but also a platform to track all safety actions/tasks.

It enables relevant users to receive notifications and collaborate with other stakeholders to proactively resolve safety issues and implement changes. In addition, AI-enabled intelligent agents provide recommendations to users to make safety-related decisions semi-autonomously. It also provides visibility into all safety events, insights, action plans, and outcomes.

To know more about the safety management review software from ComplianceQuest, click here: https://www.compliancequest.com/management-review-software/

Watch a 6-min demo here: https://www.compliancequest.com/demo-video/management-review-overview/