Managing health and safety in the workplace should be proactive so that the management process is effective. Health and safety management are an organised practises and procedures for identifying and reducing exposure of persons to hazards and incidents. It involves health and safety consultants for doing an audit as well as training of employee.

Most people would ask; why should I manage health and safety when I have implemented suggestions made by a health and safety consultant and have met compliance standards. Here is why.

First of all, workplace risk and hazards, working activities and patterns and human behaviour changes all the time. Control measures and procedures become ineffective when such changes occur. That is why proactive health and safety management is very essential.

Secondly, while the insurance companies and compensation authority may pay for major injuries and illness, most might not pay for the following:

• sick leave for the first three months
• wages of temporary workers
• overtime
• productivity loss
• repair costs for plant and equipment
• legal costs
• fines
• increased insurance renewal costs

It will, ultimately be the employer's responsibility to foot the above bills. Prevention is better than cure. Managing health and safety in the workplace is less costly than doing the damage control after an incident.

The core elements that are effective for managing health and safety in the workplace are;

• good leadership and management
• Having a trained/skilled workforce
• Having a working environment where everyone is involved and proactive in health and safety

Process of managing health and safety in the workplace

Any health and safety consultant will point out the importance of the following when managing health and safety in the workplace:

1. Enforce national and internal standards, procedures, protocols and codes

2. Health and safety management procedures should follow the 'Plan, Implement, Evaluate, Act' pattern

• Plan – Determine your policies and plan for implementation
• Implement – Profile your health and safety risks, organise your health and safety and implementing your plan
• Evaluate ' Measure the performance of the implemented plan
• Act ' Reviewing the performance and note lessons learnt

3. Managing health and safety in the workplace should not only focus on having health and safety management systems. Human behaviour and attitudes can have an impact on health and safety too. Health and safety management systems should also focus on evaluating employees' attitude and behaviour towards health and safety. If they appear not to be health and safety conscious, corrective measures should be considered such as training of employees.

You can effectively manage your health and safety by,

• Ensuring that safe work practices and procedures are established and followed all the time.
• Ensuring that information, instructions, training and supervision are provided to empower employees to perform their duties healthily and safely.
• Ensuring that incidents are reported, recorded and investigated so that corrective action is initiated.
• Ensuring health and safety is considered prior to the purchase of any products, equipment, tools etc.
• Implementing safe procedures to manage and safe-guard visitors and contractors
• Ensuring consultative forums for health and safety are established such as health and safety committees and they work according to the law.

Being health and safety compliant means more than achieving health and safety compliance; it is a process that continuously has to be managed. Make sure you have a health and safety consultant assessing your site regularly to determine the quality of health and safety in your workplace.

MAKROSAFE can help you draft, implement and effectively manage your health and safety management systems through consulting with our legally well-vexed consultants. Contact us today!