What is a Health and Safety Management System?
According to the HSE, which acts as the workplace safety regulator for industries including construction, transport, manufacturing and public services, any SMS should follow four key action steps: Plan, Do, Check, Act. This incorporates all aspects of your safety culture, from conducting risk assessments through to carrying out safety audits.
For example, a construction company should ensure its safety management system includes processes for assessing risks and reporting hazards before employees arrive on a building site. It should clearly define who is ultimately responsible for health and safety on-site during the build, as well as show how managers can track any changes and improvements that are made throughout the project.
Whether your company is based in a higher-risk industry like construction, or your workplace is more office-based, implementing an effective safety management system can benefit organisations of all sizes. In this article, we’ll look at what your SMS should include, the positive impact it can have and how using digital tools can support you in creating and maintaining a safer workplace.
What are the key pillars of an effective Safety Management System?
Safety management systems can look different depending on a number of factors. The size of an organisation, the sector you work in and the level of risk your employees face in the workplace will all shape the way you create and implement an SMS. That said, a good safety management system will always cover five key areas: effective leadership, hazard identification and risk management, employee training and development, safety control measures and continuous improvement.
Effective leadership
Employers and senior management should lead by example and demonstrate their commitment to good health and safety practices every day. It’s not enough for top-level teams to set safety policies. They must show their colleagues how they are carrying out those policies too (i.e. lead by example!)
By actively demonstrating that health and safety makes up an organisations culture, employers help to emphasise the importance of good safety practice to their employees. This includes encouraging transparency and good communication, particularly around reporting incidents such as near misses, and changes to policies.
This in turn leads to better employee engagement in safety at work, helping you generate more safety data and insight and improving the overall health and happiness of your workforce.
Hazard identification and risk management
Identifying hazards and mitigating the risks they pose is the second important element of a safety management system. This involves the process of spotting, reporting and recording hazards in the workplace, as well as carrying out regular risk assessments to determine potential threats to employee safety.
Proactive employee engagement is also key here. Everyone should feel confident and empowered to report hazards before they become the trigger for a serious incident or accident. This data can also help you determine hotspots, allowing you to prioritise your safety initiatives at sites or locations that require more immediate action.
The final part of this pillar is how employees would be expected to make changes to their working practice to manage and hopefully lessen this risk. This can also include risk transfer, risk reduction and risk avoidance. Strategies such as wearing the correct PPE, creating barriers with an appropriate perimeter or implementing early warning triggers such as alarms.
Employee training and development
How do you ensure your employees feel confident to carry out your safety processes? You invest time and money in high-quality training and development. At the most basic level, everyone on your team should understand the personal responsibility they have to act in a way that keeps them and their colleagues safe. However, an effective safety management system will prioritise ongoing training for employees, whether it is individualised or in group training sessions.
Developing your teams’ health and safety know-how is an ongoing process and one that your employees should also have a say in. By getting to know their day-to-day concerns and listening to their ideas about how to improve their safety practice, you can make sure the training you deliver is as effective as possible. By getting them involved in the process, you will also further engage your employees in safety. This also helps to drive a proactive approach to safety and risk management in your workplace.
Safety control measures
Another important part of your safety management plan is the control measures you put in place following a risk assessment or safety audit. These measures could include everyday actions, like providing PPE for employees to wear while working, or instructions to follow during and after emergency incidents.
As with all aspects of your safety management processes, make sure that employees know when and how to appropriately and proactively respond to any incidents. Make sure you update these safety control measures as and when policies change and communicate these changes with everyone who needs to know.
Continuous improvement
The final pillar of a robust safety management system is continuous improvement. Workplace health and safety is not a ‘one-and-done’ activity and good safety management takes ongoing action in all areas.
This includes conducting regular risk assessments, updating machinery and software when needed, implementing appropriate corrective or preventative actions (CAPAs) when new hazards are identified, and updating employee training to reflect any changes made. Regular audits and employee-led evaluations can help you better identify safety issues before they become serious incidents or fatalities (SIFs). This may sound like a lot, but an effective safety management system can help streamline these processes and ensure that everyone is playing their part to protect everyone within your workplace.
What are the benefits of implementing a Safety Management System?
When it comes to putting a safety management system in place, the HSE highlights the need to focus on people over process. In particular, it emphasises simplifying the documentation process so that you can focus more on the practical steps you need to take to control risk. With Notify Technology’s health and safety software, you can streamline your safety management process and get back to prioritising your people.
At Notify, we work in collaboration with you and your teams to understand your business needs and offer digital solutions that work for you. From onboarding and training to the rollout of your new safety software, our experts will work closely with you to maximise the impact that our online tools can have on your business.
Whether you’re looking to engage your employees and improve your incident response time with our native health and safety mobile app, or you need an intuitive dashboard to identify leading indicators in one central location, Notify has a range of software solutions that can be tailored to best support your business needs. With a customer satisfaction rating of 97%, you can be sure that our expert team will be on hand to help every step of the way.
If you’d like to find out more about how Notify can support you in building a safer, healthier and more productive workplace, get in touch today. Book your free demonstration and try our software services for yourself.
How do you implement a Safety Management System?
When it comes to putting a safety management system in place, the HSE highlights the need to focus on people over process. In particular, it emphasises simplifying the documentation process so that you can focus more on the practical steps you need to take to control risk. With Notify Technology’s health and safety software, you can streamline your safety management process and get back to prioritising your people.
At Notify, we work in collaboration with you and your teams to understand your business needs and offer digital solutions that work for you. From onboarding and training to the rollout of your new safety software, our experts will work closely with you to maximise the impact that our online tools can have on your business.
Whether you’re looking to engage your employees and improve your incident response time with our native health and safety mobile app, or you need an intuitive dashboard to identify leading indicators in one central location, Notify has a range of software solutions that can be tailored to best support your business needs. With a customer satisfaction rating of 97%, you can be sure that our expert team will be on hand to help every step of the way.
If you’d like to find out more about how Notify can support you in building a safer, healthier and more productive workplace, get in touch today. Book your free demonstration and try our software services for yourself.