Assessment of Safety and Health Management System

Introduction

There are three basic methods of assessing safety and health program effectiveness. The following pages will explain each of them. It also weill provide more detailed information on how to use these tools to evaluate each element and subsidiary component of a safety and health system.

The three basic methods for assessing safety and health program effectiveness are:

• Checking documentation of activity;
• Interviewing employees at all levels for knowledge, awareness, and perceptions; and
• Reviewing site conditions and, where hazards are found, finding the weakness in management systems that allowed the hazards to occur or to be "uncontrolled."

Some elements of the safety and health program are best assessed using one of these methods. Others lend themselves to assessment by two or all three methods.

Documentation

• Checking documentation is a standard audit technique. It is particularly useful for understanding whether the tracking of hazards to correction is effective. It can also be used to determine the quality of certain activities, such as self-inspections or routine hazard analysis.
• Inspection records can tell the evaluator whether serious hazards are being found, or whether the same hazards are being found repeatedly. If serious hazards are not being found and accidents keep occurring, there may be a need to train inspectors to look for different hazards. If the same hazards are being found repeatedly, the problem may be more complicated. Perhaps the hazards are not being corrected. If so, this would suggest a tracking problem or a problem in accountability for hazard correction.
• If certain hazards recur repeatedly after being corrected, someone is not taking responsibility for keeping those hazards under control. Either the responsibility is not clear, or those who are responsible are not being held accountable.

Employee interviews

• Talking to randomly selected employees at all levels will provide a good indication of the quality of employee training and of employee perceptions of the program. If safety and health training is effective, employees will be able to tell you about the hazards they work with and how they protect themselves and others by keeping those hazards controlled. Every employee should also be able to say precisely what he or she is expected to do as part of the program. And all employees hsould know where to go and the route to follow in an emergency.
• Employee perceptions can provide other useful information. An employee's opinion of how easy it is to report a hazard and get a response will tell you a lot about how well the hazard reporting system is working. If employees indicate that the system for enforcing safety and health rules and safe work practices is inconsistent or confusing, you will know that the system needs improvement.
• Interviews should not be limited to hourly employees. Much can be learned from talking with first-line supervisors. It is also helpful to query line managers about their understanding of safety and health responsibilities.

Site conditions and Root causes of hazards

• Examining the conditions of the workplace can reveal existing hazards. But it can also provide information about the breakdown of those management systems meant to prevent or control these hazards.
• Looking at conditions and practices is a well-established technique for assessing the effectiveness of safety and health programs. For example, let's say that in areas where PPE is required, you see large and understandable signs communicating this requirement and all employees, with no exceptions, wearing equipment properly. You have obtained valuable visual evidence that the PPE Program is working. If, on the other hand, you find that some employees or even supervisors are not wearing the appropriate personal protective equipment, then you have obtained valuable visual evidence that the PPE Program is not working.
• Another way to obtain information about work site safety and health program management is through "root cause analysis" of observed hazards. This approach to hazards is much like the most sophisticated accident investigation techniques, in which many contributing factors are located and corrected or controlled.

When evaluating each part of a work site's safety and health program, use of one or more of these techniques is appropriate.

• Assessing the key components of Leadership, Participation, and Line Accountability
• Assessing the key components of Work site analysis
• Assessing the key components of Hazard Prevention and Control
• Assessing the key components of Safety and Health Training
• Annual work site inspection form
• Monthly inspections/observations report form

This information is provided to you as

An EHS Network of Central Kansas "Safety Training Article"

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