The Five Core Elements of a Systemic Approach to OSH

An overview of each element is as follows:

• Management Commitment
  The management group within every organization must visibly support OSH efforts if they are to be successful. Leadership alone can make safety a key business goal and provide the necessary resources to achieve safety objectives. Employees within every organization take their cues from administrators, managers, and supervisors. If leadership consistently treats safety as a priority, so will the rest of the work group. Conversely, if employees do not sense a strong leadership commitment to safety then they may feel it is not worth focusing on during their daily activities.

  An important aspect of management commitment to OSH is the assignment of safety responsibilities throughout the organization. Each individual must have a clear understanding of what their role is within the overall OSH effort. This need is true regardless of the employee's job title or administrative level. Managers, supervisors, and front-line employees all have distinct safety responsibilities. Employees must understand these responsibilities and must be held accountable for meeting them by leadership.

• Employee Involvement
  Management must establish methods for employees to actively participate in OSH efforts. Employee involvement can provide the means through which employees develop and express a commitment to workplace safety. Employees who feel they are a part of the safety process are more likely to comply with established procedures and work cooperatively with management to resolve safety issues.

  Effective employee involvement also allows management to take advantage of the unique insights offered by their employees. An operator who runs the same piece of equipment on a production line every day is likely to be aware of specific hazards associated with that equipment or related work processes. These same hazards are not likely to be noticed by management or others who may simply pass by the work area occasionally. Viewing workers as the "experts" at their assigned tasks can yield tremendous benefits to the employer in the form of safety feedback.

• Hazard Identification
  We defined "hazard" in the previous lesson as "an unsafe condition or unsafe act that can lead to an accident." A critical component of a systematic approach to OSH is establishing methods for identifying hazards within the workplace. Two common methods of identifying hazards within a work setting are safety inspections and audits.

  • Inspections involve a tour of the workplace in an attempt to visually identify potential hazards. Items noted during such an inspection might include damaged ladders, slippery floors, or unsafe lifting practices being used by employees.
  • Audits differ from inspections in that they focus on the review of established programs and procedures. Audits help to ensure that these programs are maintained over time and that required actions continue to be taken. Deficiencies uncovered during an audit may indicate that an employer has failed to update safe work procedures to reflect current conditions or has not provided training at the required frequency.

An important aspect of hazard identification is that it is ideally approached in a "proactive" manner. The goal of every employer should be to identify hazards before they lead to an accident. The benefit of taking this approach is obviously the avoidance of both human suffering and financial losses. Hazards can also be identified after an accident has occurred using "reactive" methods. Both proactive and reactive forms of hazard identification will be discussed in greater detail during a future lesson.

• Hazard Control
  Once hazards have been identified, it is then imperative that they be adequately controlled. Employers must effectively "close the loop" on hazard findings. This process may entail taking such actions as upgrading equipment, developing safe work procedures, or providing safety training to employees.

  Effective hazard control will ensure that the potential for injury or illness is either eliminated or reduced to an acceptable level of risk. Controls for workplace hazards should be considered in terms of a specific hierarchy of options (i.e., "hierarchy of controls") which we will further explore later in this course.

• Training
  The need for employee training is closely associated with occupational safety and health. Although it can be considered a form of hazard control, the need for training is so ubiquitous within the OSH field that it has been included as a separate element within our systematic approach. Employees need to be provided with adequate knowledge to avoid hazards that they face on the job. This knowledge is critical because many workplace hazards are not obvious and may be unique to a given work environment or process.

  Safety and health training may be general in nature or might be job-specific. In many cases, regulatory requirements may drive the content and frequency of training. Delivery methods can vary greatly and may incorporate traditional classroom lectures, hands-on demonstrations, or online content.

  An important aspect of OSH training is that it can serve as a key area for integrating safety into the organization. For example, most employees receive some level of training when they are assigned a task for the first time. An employer should take this as an opportunity to not only teach the employee how to complete the task, but at the same time how to complete it safely. Employees are likely to perceive this approach as an indication that the employer places as much emphasis on their personal safety as they do on completion of the job task.

Note that three of the elements included in our systematic approach--management commitment, employee involvement, and training--are not specific to OSH and are general enough to apply to many other major functions within an organization. It is usually necessary to have these three elements in place if an organization is to be successful with any type of broad initiative whether it is occupational safety and health, quality control, or customer service.

The other two elements--hazard identification and hazard control--use terminology that is specific to OSH. However, this same need to "find and fix" concerns exists elsewhere in the organization. For example, the quality control group within an organization may be focused on finding and fixing product defects. Likewise, the customer service group may be interested in identifying and correcting consumer complaints. The focus of these other groups is not on workplace hazards, but they have the same need to identify and control "flaws" within their structure.