Safety Management Systems: Has anything really changed?

In 2014, QRMC’s Managing Consultant David Muchow presented at an AIHS Conference asking the question of whether “Your Safety Management System (SMS) was suffering from the obesity epidemic”?

A lot has changed since then, but a number of things certainly have not.

Since then we have seen the emergence of the concept of ‘de-cluttering’ … and yet there are still management systems that are verbose in their language, use layers upon layer of documents and display an absence of consideration for the end-user.

Every SMS is developed to ensure that the systems and processes meet the legislative, industry ‘best-practice’ standards and organisational requirements. But there is a common failure in that the often over-engineered Management System documentation does not position the organisation (i.e. the workforce) to best achieve compliance with these requirements.

There is a need to ‘package’ all SMSs to position them for optimal operational uptake.

With the introduction of ISO 45001 there is an ideal opportunity to review, rationalise, overhaul and ‘re-package’ your Safety Management System.  ISO 45001 and its discussion around ‘documented information’ can be used as a catalyst.

The other, often overlooked serious consequence of failing to optimise the SMS relates to compliance with Section 39 of the WHS Regulation – The person must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the information, training and instruction is provided in a way that is readily understandable by any person to whom it is provided. This is obviously asking for management system focussed on the ‘end-user’.

The term ‘user-friendly’ is often thrown into the mix – but are our management systems really ‘easy to understand’, and if we were to consider the synonyms for ‘user-friendly’, are our management systems foolproof, easy to operate and use, practical, simple, straight forward, and uncomplicated? More to the point, would our workforce think they were?

Over the coming months QRMC will explore some of the common issues that contribute to the problem, offering thoughts and strategies that could be employed to position a Management System for easier application, greater efficiency and effectiveness and of course, improved levels of compliance.

Please contact QRMC for more information.