20 Sure-Fire Ways to Stuff-Up Management of Workplace Health & Safety

1 Lack of management commitment, leadership and drive from the top of the organisation.

2 Lack of understanding and implementation of sensible safety legislation.

3 Lack of understanding and implementation of common law principles

4 Too much concentration on lag indicators such as the Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate at the expense of leading indicators. Thinking minor personal damage is a good predictor of life-altering personal damage.

5 Using enterprise “accident” experience to guide action rather than industry taxonomies of permanently life-altering personal damage.

6 Lack of succinct paperwork. There is not much point in having detailed paperwork that is too much like hard work to read.

7 Using theory instead of real world approaches-Whatever you do reality test it with the workforce first.

8 Ignoring “When implementing change-Remember, people support what they create”

9 Not using face to face communications whenever possible.

10 Not using a needs analysis to guide all your actions.

11 Ignoring the simplicity not complexity rule.

12 Not creating an expectation for people at all levels to perform in safety.

13 Not developing goals, objectives, targets etc. for the Safety Management System.

14 Not using Learning Needs Analysis to guide conduct of learning. Not using Adult Learning Principles & Process to guide facilitation. Using lecture style presentations and Death by Power-Point.

15 Putting too much emphasis on the findings from risk assessments, the reality is that a lot of risk assessment is very subjective

16 Not having regular audits of the Safety Management System.

17 Not practicing Emergency Response Plans

18 Not having simple Safe Working Procedures, aim for 2 pages at the most, use pictures, diagrams, flow-charts etc.

19 Not using team-building principles in your safety approach

20 Taking yourself too seriously and not celebrating success.