Managing health and safety
Corporate health and
safety strategy
Alan Waring
The author
Alan Waring is Principal of Alan Waring & Associates,
Consultants in risk, management and change, Epping,
Essex, UK.
Abstract
Policy, objectives and strategy comprise the “front-end”
components of a successful health and safety manage-
ment system (SMS) which every employer should set up.
The particular strategy represents the focus of attention
over a defined period of time, typically one to five years,
and determines much of the practical SMS requirements.
Seeks to outline the requirements for successful health and
safety management and how these may be addressed
systematically through strategy and SMS.
Facilities
Volume 14 · Number 3/4 · March/April 1996 · pp. 52–55
© MCB University Press · ISSN 0263-2772
52
Many countries now have legislation which
requires employers to manage the health and
safety of their employees, and others who
might be affected, in a competent and busi-
ness-like way. Because the physical environ-
ment of the workplace has a direct bearing on
health and safety, facilities managers have an
important executive responsibility in this area.
Their activities form an integral part of the
organization’s health and safety management
system (SMS).
An SMS framework
Figure 1 depicts an overview model of an SMS
which is consistent with both HSE publication
HS(G)65[1] and the forthcoming proposed
Brtish Standard guide to health and safety
management systems[2]. These are also con-
sistent with quality ideas such as the “cycle of
continuous improvement” and international
standards such as ISO 9000 and ISO 14000,
although shortcomings and limitations of such
standards when applied to occupational safety
and health have been recognized[3].
In order to get the cycle started, key
questions include:
• Have we identified all the key statutory
requirements and do we understand them
and the practical implications?
• Have we tapped into sources of informa-
tion about best practice regarding our
industry, activities, and processes?
• Are our arrangements for drawing up a
safety policy, objectives and strategy
adequate?
• Who is going to organize, plan and make
resource estimates?
• Who is going to carry out risk assessments?
• Have we got enough resources to do every-
thing in one go?
• What would be a realistic timetable?
• What other factors need to be considered?
• Who will be responsible for which aspects
of implementation?
• What are the training implications?
• How will we monitor progress?
• What about safety audits?
• Do we have enough safety expertise
in-house?
This article is based on a paper presented by the
author at a Winton Environmental Management
Seminar, Royal Air Force Museum, Hendon, 11
October 1995.
 Corporate health and safety strategy Facilities
Alan Waring Volume 14 · Number 3/4 · March/April 1996 · 52–55

Figure 1 Overview model of a safety management system Figure 2 A hierarchy of business and safety objectives

Outer Inner
context context Business/organizational
Profits objectives

6 Retain/develop Develop
Periodic Cost-effective safe customer base and “ownership” and
reviews operations sales culture

1
Making policy Increase
Setting objectives Reduce costs productivity
Developing strategy

2 Safety objectives
5 Preparation (organizing, Prevent/control
Audits planning, resourcing) avoidable loss

3
Implementing Minimize
safety plans accident/incident Optimize safety Improve safe Develop safety
costs resource costs systems of work culture

4
Monitoring and
measuring Minimize number
performance and severity of Manage risks
accidents and competently
Core safety management incidents
system processes

Safety management system boundary Develop effective safety

Source: [3] management system
Demonstrate safety
management system
effectiveness via audits and
performance measurement

Implement effective risk

Policy, strategy and objectives controls

An organization’s health and safety policy

Effective planning,
sets the scene from the top regarding the organizing, resourcing
board’s beliefs, intentions, priorities and
requirements from managers and workforce. Develop sound policies and
strategies
It should be a written statement which
contains objectives and indications of Source: Adapted from [3]
key responsibilities and practical arrange-
ments.
Long-term, permanent objectives might
include:
Health and safety strategy emanates from
• continuous improvement in the health and
policy and objectives and is often encapsulated
safety of employees and others who might
in phrases such as: “get the safety manage-
be affected;
ment system established”; “raise safety aware-
• minimization of accidents and maximiza-
ness”; “improve key competences through
tion of avoidable loss;
safety training”; “active involvement of the
• reduction in risks through improved
workforce in safety”; “focus on safety project
technology;
teams”; and “reduce risks through improved
• developing a positive safety culture.
technology”.
Ideally, health and safety objectives will It will be important to set realistic time
be linked to business and organizational frames and to get the right balance of
objectives, an example of which is shown in improvements. For example, a strategy which
Figure 2. A coherent set of objectives is focuses on improved technology may be
necessary as it forms the basis of a coherent relatively quick to implement, whereas a focus
set of measures of safety performance. Each on improved safety culture is likely to take
objective suggests a number of appropriate years. Both elements, technology and changes
measures of performance. in attitudes and behaviour, may be necessary.
53
 Corporate health and safety strategy
Alan Waring
Organizing, planning and resourcing
Those having key safety responsibilities will
need to organize, plan and resource so that
those responsibilities can be discharged.
Other individuals are likely to be drawn in as
the process cascades down and across the
organization. Co-ordination will be required.
The kinds of activity involved include:
• preliminary risk assessments;
• drawing up hierarchies of objectives;
• identifying the need for lower level
planning;
• allocating responsibilities, accountabilities
and authority;
• establishing effective communication;
• addressing information and training
requirements;
• selection of contractors and arrangements
for their control.
Implementation
Implementation is about ensuring that risks
are adequately controlled. To varying degrees,
risk assessments will be required in all such
implementation activity, and the level of
sophistication in such assessments will
depend on the nature of the particular task.
Experience suggests that risk assessment is
not merely a once-and-for-all activity during
organizing and planning (where it is required
for focusing) but is also an integral part of the
implementation process which is very much
concerned with the details of risk control.
Control measures typically fall into the
following categories:
• engineering controls (e.g. process design,
exhaust ventilation);
• organizational controls (e.g. safety
co-ordination committee);
• procedural controls (e.g. procedures for
plant operation, PTWs);
• behavioural controls (e.g. training);
• personal protective equipment (e.g.
hearing protectors).
Implementation is not a simple, serial set of
operations, but a set of different tasks of
different levels of complexity, carried out at
different levels in the organization. There will
often be a need for a project management
approach.
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Monitoring and measuring performance
Risk control implementation would be diffi-
cult, if not impossible, to achieve without
appropriate and adequate monitoring of
progress and outcomes, i.e. performance
compared with control objectives and criteria.
Traditionally, many organizations have
adopted a very limited and potentially
misleading approach to measuring safety
performance, which focuses on accident rates.
A more comprehensive set of measures is
required.
In addition to casual observation, regular
systematic monitoring of a range of perfor-
mance indicators is required. There are
two kinds of systematic monitoring:
(1) proactive, which addresses the current
conditions and activities;
(2) reactive, which addresses past conditions
and historical data, e.g. accidents.
Examples of proactive measures are: safety
project teams meeting their objectives; safety
training results; ventilation efficiency
measures; completion of risk assessment
programmes; assessed levels of risk; and clear-
up/remedial rates for reported hazards or
defects.
Both proactive and reactive measures
are needed within a coherent set of measures
of safety performance which links to measures
of performance for the business or organiza-
tion. An objectives hierarchy, as in Figure 2,
provides a framework for identifying the
measures of performance. For example:
(1) Objective: implement effective/efficient
safety controls:
• performance measure: fulfilment of
recommendations from safety audit
reports;
• criteria: all recommendations to be
implemented and complete within
12 months; risk priorities within
three months or sooner, according
to urgency determined by the safety
department.
(2) Objective: implement effective/efficient
engineering controls:
• performance measure: effectiveness
of exhaust ventilation;
• criteria: where risks of exposure to
harmful airborne substances are
known or foreseeable, airborne con-
centrations shall not exceed a value of
MEL/10 or OES/5 as appropriate on
an eight-hour TWA basis.
 Corporate health and safety strategy
Alan Waring
Safety audits
Auditing can operate at any level in the
organization and can be comprehensive or
can focus on particular aspects of the SMS.
Whatever the case, periodic audits are needed
which seek to establish any or all of the follow-
ing:
• Is the SMS as designed and, as operated,
capable of delivering health and safety to
required standards?
• Is the organization or a particular part of
it meeting all its statutory and corporate
obligations in health and safety?
• Are the organization’s own safety proce-
dures being followed?
• Are technical safety requirements being
met regarding plant, equipment, structures
and processes?
• Are the safety performance criteria
appropriate and set at the right level?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses
of the SMS?
• What could and should be done to rectify
shortcomings?
Thus, safety audits are more than a cursory
assessment or a safety inspection and usually
require independent, external auditors.
Periodic reviews
The most likely reasons for review are: addi-
tion of a start-up or “green-field” site; intro-
duction of new processes or technology or
changes in them; major reorganization or
expansion; external events or developments,
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e.g. legislation, court cases, new information
on hazards in the industry; findings of a safety
audit; requirements of enforcing authorities
or insurers.
Periodic reviews are an iterative process
which continue throughout the lifetime of an
organization. There are no hard and fast rules
about review frequency and reviews in one
form or another will be going on all the
time. However, a rough guide is that a
formal review of the whole SMS should
be undertaken once every 12 months.
Conclusion
Safety strategy is both a formal component
of a safety management system and what
actually happens in the organization day by
day. A systematic framework is needed so
that policy, objectives, strategy, organizing,
planning, resourcing, risk assessments,
implementation, monitoring and measuring
performance, audits and reviews can be
tackled coherently. This in essence is what
the Management of Health and Safety at
Work Regulations 1992 require.
References
1 Health & Safety Executive, Successful Health and
Safety Management, HS(G)65, HSE Books, Sudbury,
1991.
2 Proposed British Standard Guide to Occupational
Health and Safety Management Systems, BSI
Standards, 1996 (forthcoming).
3 Waring, A.E., Safety Management Systems, Chapman
& Hall, London, 1995.