What Is Health And Safety Management?
Health & Safety Management System is the proven method of reducing risk and improving productivity. The ISO 9001 (quality) and ISO 14001 (environmental) management standards that govern health and safety follow the ‘plan – do – check – act’ management process.
Health And Safety Overview
OSHA Safety and Health Program Management Guidelines aim to bring a proactive approach to workplace safety and health management. The guidelines focus on prevention of injuries and accidents and continuous improvement of safety measures on the work floor. Through a proactive approach, businesses can experience improvements in:
- Quality of product, process, and service
- Workplace morale
- Recruitment and retention
- Brand image and reputation
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Benefits of Health And Safety
- Reduced cost to the company
- Fewer accidents on the work floor
- Better standing among partners and suppliers
- Lower employee absence
- Improved productivity
What is the occupational safety and health management system?
It is defined as a set of interrelated or interacting elements to establish OSH policy and objectives within an organization and successfully achieve those objectives. OHSMS is considered a proactive framework that allows organizations to
- Identify and control health and safety risks
- Reduce the possibility of accidents on the work floor
- Help remain compliant with health and safety regulations
- Improve performance
ISO 45001 is the International Standard that defines requirements for an occupational health and safety (OH&S) management system, with guidance for use. The standard enables an organization to improve its OH&S performance in preventing injury ill-health proactively by:
- developing and implementing a detailed OH&S policy and OH&S objectives
- establishing systematic processes that consider its “context” and which take into account its risks and opportunities, and its legal and other requirements
- determining the hazards and OH&S risks associated with its activities and creating controls to eliminate them
- establishing clearly defined operational controls to handle OH&S risks and its legal and other requirements
- increasing awareness related to OH&S risks
- evaluating OH&S performance and focusing on taking necessary action
- ensuring that workers play an active role in OH&S matters
Basic principles of safety management
The basic principles for the successful implementation of a workplace safety management system in your organization include
- Top management commitment
- Creating a reporting system encouraging employee participation
- Training workers to identify and mitigate risks
- Performing periodic inspections and Job Hazard Analyses to reduce risks
- Collecting data and performing analytics to prevent future occurrences
- Prioritizing risks and putting in controls
- Planning for emergencies and unusual occurrences
- Continuously improving based on experience
CQ for Health And Safety Management
CQ’s Health and Safety Management Solution enables companies to centralize all incident data, near misses, safety observations, perform an investigation, and implement corrective actions. Various features part of the CQ health and safety management software include –
- Near miss
- Injury and illness
- Property, assets, and motor vehicles
- Environmental hazards and spills
- Reporting and dashboards
CQ for Health And Safety Management
CQ’s Health and Safety Management Solution enables companies to centralize all incident data, near misses, safety observations, perform an investigation, and implement corrective actions. Various features part of the CQ health and safety management software include –
- OSHA reporting and compliance
- Near miss
- Injury and illness
- Property, assets, and motor vehicles
- Environmental hazards and spills
- Reporting and dashboards
Health and Safety Guidelines
Employee health and safety should be the topmost priority of an organization. Employers must design safety procedures with a deep focus on employee health and safety. However, in today’s scenario, employees are also dealing with different levels of stress. Organizations must pay attention to the mental well-being of staff, in addition to training and upskilling them for the future. Some health and safety guidelines for leaders to consider listed below:
- Sanitization and sufficient protection in the form of masks and PPE should be made available
- Social distancing could lead to escalated costs. Given the requirement for physical distancing, the office layouts will have to be redrawn, thereby reducing the number of workstations/employees in a given area.
- Employees’ commute to and from work and the use of facilities at the workplace such as cafeteria, gym, shower rooms and other amenities provided by the organization deserves a vital amount of consideration while determining H&S protocols.
- Monitoring employee health and handling any illnesses including isolation in case of infection and the implication for co-workers should be factored in
- Incident reporting and management will become even more critical to protect colleagues, and organizations must adopt a robust and effective incident reporting mechanism that is void of any leakages
- With these, there also arise concerns about discriminatory practices against a Covid-infected or recovering patient that need to be prevented through sensitization and other awareness programs
- Health and Safety heads are also trying to address the risk that remote working / working from home poses, helping employees identify those risks, making them aware of the potential hazards, monitoring, etc.
Key Elements of Health and Safety Management
- Management commitment and robust safety policies
- Hazard identification and risk assessment
- Workplace inspections
- Worker competency and training
- Emergency response planning
- Incident reporting and investigations
- HSMS program administration
Frequently Asked Questions
Why Should Organizations Use a Health and Safety Management System?
- HSMS helps improve health and safety performance
- Lowers insurance premiums as it demonstrates the company’s effective policies to control risk
- Employees will feel confident as they feel the threats and health problems caused at the workplace are well managed
- Makes organizations eligible for OHSAS 18001 certification
- Improves employee retention rate
What is the Importance of Health and Safety?
- Following health and safety procedures prevents accidents and potential death of employees
- Improves public opinion of the company that could lead to customer retention and brand loyalty
- Helps remain OSHA compliant thus minimizing legal charges