OHS Management System

Mike O’Reilly (Injury Management Advisor) shares another useful document with us. It’s an effective OHS Management System that Mike stresses needs to be coupled with a focus on continuous improvement.

Structure and Commitment

• Demonstrate commitment by senior management
• Document accountability for all OHS functions
• Provide for OHS communications, consultation and cooperation
• Match competencies with allocated tasks or initiate training
• Develop OHS policy to detail approach
• Determine and set ’safety culture’
• Verify all aspects of OHSMS to determine ‘real position’

Planning and Standards

• Identify risks, objectives, targets and performance indicators
• Plan improvement strategies
• Inform, consult and involve employees
• Set standards commensurate with operations
• Set targets that are measurable, achievable and realistic
• Integrate OHS with existing planning mechanisms
• Allocate responsibility for specific elements of the system
• Plan for the adoption of risk management principles
• Plan OHS programs resulting from evaluation of OHS statistics
• Plan for incident and post-incident management
• Identify information, instruction and training needs

Implementation

• Allocate human, physical and financial resources
• Integrate OHS with existing management procedures
• Allocate accountabilities for implementation of each OHS target
• Inform, consult and involve employees
• Implement risk prevention and risk management procedures
• Develop Standard Operating Procedures where necessary
• Provide information, instruction, training for each specific target
• Implement procedures for reporting and documentation
• Implement and test contingency (incident management) plans
• Implement post-incident management procedures and improvement strategies

Measurement and Evaluation

• Measure OHS performance indicators set in planning process
• Measure that set standards are being implemented
• Measure that management controls are working and effective
• Measure and evaluate incidents and accidents
• Evaluate what you have achieved against original targets

Review and Improvement

• Review operation of system and OHS program targets
• Identify areas for improvement
• Plan and implement corrective action
• Verify effectiveness of corrective measures