John Nolan
December 21, 2016
The success of an OH&SMS (Operational Health and Safety Management System) is normally measured by its ability to prevent incidents and accidents; however, in the real world both unfortunately do happen from time to time. What then becomes critical is how people react to an incident, and the strength of the process that an organization has established to prevent reoccurrence of such an incident. So, what processes, procedures, and rules need to be put in place to ensure that employee reaction to an accident is sufficient and appropriate, and to provide a foundation for investigation and improvement, and what elements of OHSAS 18001 can help us to achieve this? And, on top of this, what advice and training can the employees be given on how to act when an incident does occur?
If you have had to deal with the aftermath and investigation of an incident in the workplace, you will be aware that there is information you need to gather from the person/people involved and witnesses to ensure that your outcome can include a meaningful and accurate corrective action that prevents reoccurrence. That all sounds straightforward, but what exactly does the organization need to achieve that, and what measures need to be taken to ensure that the outcome is satisfactory? As part of the investigation into an incident, an incident report will normally be compiled by whoever is responsible for the OH&SMS. This incident report may differ from one organization to another, but keeping records to support action and improvement is good practice, and therefore is wise to do. So, given that it is understood that this information-gathering process is mandatory when an incident occurs, what preparation can we do to ensure that our staff have the necessary knowledge to participate fully?
We can therefore see that there are several vital elements that we can ensure exist to prepare employees for what is needed in the event of an incident. For example, it is highly desirable in most organizations that some of the employees will have undertaken formal first aid training, and passed some of that experience and knowledge on to colleagues. As an organization that runs an OH&SMS, it will also be helpful if your training program provides advice on how to react, whom to contact, and what action to take in the event of an accident or incident. This will also increase the preparedness of the people within your organization to deal with an incident calmly and sensibly, and to collect relevant information in the aftermath. Importantly, this will allow you to give your staff guidance on how to act and behave in the event of an incident, which should be in a calm, controlled, and organized manner. With health and safety – as with most things – knowledge, preparation, and rehearsal are key and can ensure that your team is prepared for all eventualities. No organization enjoys dealing with incidents or accidents, but the better you prepare for this likelihood, the more effective you will become at preventing them in the long run.
Why not use our free Gap Analysis Tool to measure your OH&SMS readiness to handle incidents?