Most organisation have a range of WHS procedures, instructions or rules to drive their processes, with the aim of making the work practices safer and maximising efficiency. These procedures and rules are a defensible response to control WHS risks or challenges within the workplace.

Whether these exist as a disconnected series of procedures and rules, or are framed within a tightly integrated management system, the focus is typically aimed at getting the required processes standardised and documented, whether they be relating to a specific task (e.g. machining a widget) or as part of a WHS system process (e.g. Managing WHS Training).

The drawback with all of these rules and procedures is that they need to be managed and maintained, and re-communicated whenever a change is made, and assessed for effectiveness, and … well the process, goes on! And further work is triggered by changes in regulatory requirements, industry requirements, certification requirements and other external influences. This is a headache for the custodians of the system that have to maintain its currency.

But what about the end-users – how does the array of procedures impact on them?

If too many rules and procedures can be overwhelming for the system custodians to manage, then they are probably equally if not more overwhelming for the workers that have to apply them.

Feedback from workers across a range of audits and reviews over the years highlight a range of concerns – they can be summarised as:

  • Too many rules and procedures are hard to remember.
  • Too many rules and procedures inhibit application at times.
  • With too many rules it’s hard to separate the really important ones from the less important ones.
  • The blanket rules and procedures don’t fit the work being undertaken, often ignoring the risks around us.
  • The procedures don’t respect the fact that we are experienced and know what we are doing.

Whilst there is a risk of losing detail when decluttering WHS systems, there is certainly a risk from leaving a vast framework of rules and procedures that fail to facilitate point-of-risk workers owning and managing the identified risks.

Please contact QRMC for more information.