Editor's Note: This is the final installment of an excerpt from Wayne Pardy's new book, Safety Management Systems. . . The New Generation of Safety Improvement Tools. We've edited the excerpt for the SafetyXChange format. We'll tell you more about the book and where to buy it once it's published.

Systems approaches have been used for years in manufacturing processes. But the idea of management systems, or more specifically, safety systems has come into practical use only recently. Let's talk about some of the advantages of management systems.

OHS Management Systems & the Prevention Function

If we were to apply a typical "closed loop" management system model to occupational health and safety, we could use the typical Plan, Organize, Direct and Control scenario, as depicted in countless management textbooks throughout the years. If you would like to see this model depicted, simply draw a circle and place each of the management functions at each quarter of the outside of the circle.

The piece that would make this system complete from a safety management perspective would be the prevention function. Simply add this function to the middle of your circle. Draw a dotted line from the prevention function to each of the management functions depicted in your model.

The logic behind adding a prevention function is to interject a preventive, rather than simply a reactive, corrective or adaptive aspect to the safety management system. The prevention function improves the management system by providing it with a stabilizing function. In terms of problem solving and root cause analysis, the prevention aspect of the management system facilitates effective root cause analysis as part of the problem solving or investigation process. This helps ensure that more than simply work behaviors get addressed as part of the problem solving model or puzzle.

Management Systems & Regulatory Compliance

To the extent that you're concerned that you system will be subject to close scrutiny by regulators, prevention also provides a sound means of developing your standards for due diligence. This becomes a matter of serious concern if you find yourself charged with an offense under OSHA or your state or provincial OHS Act. To avoid liability, you will have to demonstrate that you took all reasonable steps under the circumstances to prevent the offense, comply with regulatory standards and address foreseeable risks to health and safety. By and large, employers are not punished for the errors or their workers or others working on behalf of the employer; but they are punished for failing to set up the necessary system(s) to prevent such accident and injuries from happening in the first place.

There are two ways to approach due diligence. You can implement some "safety programs" for the sake of doing something in the hope that your efforts will address risks and hazards. Or you can strategically plan how your OH&S system is to be structured, how it will roll out, how the pieces will fit together and how all the pieces, taken together, work synergistically to enhance and heighten your prevention efforts.

How Safety Systems Improve the Audit Function

Safety professionals must ensure that the process they use to audit the effectiveness of their safety system is right for them. You can't rely on a generic audit nor on a system that was designed for some auto manufacturing plant in Michigan, a pulp and paper mill in New Brunswick or a fish plant in Cape Cod, unless your industry happens to be in one of those sectors. The audit must be tailored to meet your own realities. Anything less will give you a distorted picture of your safety system and its strengths and weaknesses.

One of the key benefits of having a clearly defined, graphically represented safety management system is that it enables you to develop an effective safety audit process for your own organization and situation. You can and should pattern the development of your safety audit methodology on your safety management system. The management system serves as a "template" enabling the system and the audit methodology to compliment and, ideally, enhance each other.

Conclusion

Safety system development need not be a complicated process - even if the system itself is comprehensive and complex. It's simply a matter of defining the work to be done, how to do it, who will do it and how to manage it. Put it down on paper, graph the important parts and you've got a visual representation of your OH&S management system. That can be a big help in gaining buy-in for the system. After all, when it comes to making presentations to senior management, a picture is worth a thousand words.

BY THE NUMBERS

How Fear of Being Sued Hurts Small Business

By Glenn Demby

In a recent survey of 1,109 small business owners and managers, 48% reported being very or somewhat concerned about the risk of lawsuits. Among these, 62% said that this fear had affected their business by causing them to:

• Raise prices (61%)
• Make a product or service unavailable to customers (45%)
• Cut employee benefits (23%)
• Lay off employees (11%).

Among those reporting concern about lawsuit, 62% said that were it not for fear of being sued, they'd take initiatives to increase revenues, including:

• Improving facilities or buying new equipment (80%)
• Increasing employee compensation (76%)
• Expanding the market for what they offer (69%)
• Increasing employee benefits (65%)
• Hiring additional workers (63%)
• Developing new products or services (56%).

More than one-third of surveyed owners/managers (34%) said that they had been sued at least once in the past 10 years and described the consequences of the experience in the following ways:

1. Business suffered because litigation was time consuming (73%)
2. Business suffered because litigation was expensive (64%)
3. The lawsuit made them feel more constrained in making general business decisions (61%)
4. The lawsuit caused them to make business decisions they would not otherwise have made (54%)
5. The lawsuit caused them to change business practices in a way that didn't benefit customers (45%).

Source: Harris Interactive, "Small Business: How the Threat of Lawsuits Impacts their Operations," http://www.instituteforlegalreform.com/issues/docload.cfm?docId=1045.

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