Question

There was little communication back to workers if consultation about health and safety issues did occur, what are the factors, action to be taken, the person responsible, additional factors, date and KPI's ??

Answer 1

The consultation must be made in advance and in good time, so as to allow employees time to consider, discuss and give an opinion on the matters before managerial decisions are made.

Employers must consult their employees in good time on anything carried out in the workplace which can have a substantial effect on safety and health. Any type of work activity already covered by safety and health law is valid for discussion. Consultation must occur on:

• any risk-protection and prevention measures,
• the appointment and duties of staff with safety and health responsibilities,
• the outcome of risk assessments on workplace hazards,
• the preparation of the safety statement,
• safety and health information to be provided to employees,
• reportable accidents or dangerous occurrences,
• the engagement of safety and health experts or consultants,
• the planning and organising of safety and health training, and
• the planning and introduction of new technologies, particularly on the consequences of the choice of work equipment, on working conditions and on the working environment.

An employer has the duty to provide information, instruction, training and supervision necessary to ensure, the safety, health, and welfare at work of their employees including safety representatives and safety committee members. In order for them to do their job they must have access to information on:

• any risk assessments and safety statements prepared under the regular norms
• information on reportable accidents, occupational illnesses and dangerous occurrences without identifying any individual;
• any information on safety and health measures required under safety and health legislation; and
• any safety and health information on dangerous equipment, chemicals or processes used at their workplace including instruction manuals and safety data sheets.

This information must be given to them, so they can fulfil their functions properly and play an informed part in preventing accidents and ill-health and promoting safety and health. The type of information will vary according to the hazards and risks involved.

Since a properly informed safety representative or a safety committee can play an important role in preventing accidents and ill-health, it is in the employer’s interest to ensure that they are supplied with all relevant information. However, there are limited exceptions.

An employer should not supply:

• any information which he or she could not disclose without contravening a legal prohibition;
• any information relating to an individual without his or her consent;
• any information which, for reasons other than its effect on safety, health and welfare at work, could cause significant damage to the employer’s business; and
• any information obtained by the employer which could affect his or her legal position in taking or defending any legal proceedings.

The business confidentiality rules that apply to any workplace, also apply to any information provided to safety representatives or the safety committee. In turn the Health and Safety Authority Inspector can give the following information to the safety representative:

• Factual information to do with safety and health in that particular workplace, except any information revealing a trade secret and
• Information about any action the inspector has taken or proposes to take in connection with the workplace, for example, whenever the inspector serves an Improvement Notice or a Prohibition Notice, he or she must provide a copy to the safety representative and in turn inform the representative whenever any of these enforcement actions are withdrawn.

Safety representatives and safety committee members are entitled to time off for training, without loss of earnings, so that they can acquire the knowledge to discharge their functions. The employer must provide this training. For construction site safety representatives, the employer employing the safety representative must provide the training. The Authority has set out a syllabus on what safety representatives and safety committee members must receive training on and it is set out in the publications listed below.

Consultation with workers

Consultation is a two-way process between you and your workers where you:

· talk to each other about WHS matters

· listen to their concerns and raise your concerns

· seek and share views and information

· consider what your workers say before you make decisions

· advise workers of the outcome of consultation in a timely manner.

You must consult with workers when:

· identifying hazards and assessing risks

· making decisions about ways to eliminate or minimise those risks

· making decisions about the adequacy of facilities for the welfare of workers

· proposing changes that may affect the health or safety of your workers

· making decisions on health and safety procedures.

If workers are represented by a Health and Safety Representative (HSR), the consultation must involve that representative.

Consultation can be as simple as talking to workers regularly and considering their views when making health and safety decisions.

Another option is to put in place more formal consultation arrangements, where you and your workers agree to consultation procedures. This can save time and confusion about how and when consultation must occur. If agreed consultation procedures are established, then consultation must be conducted in accordance with those procedures.

Consultation

Consultation with other duty holders enables everyone associated with the work to have a shared understanding of what the risks are, which workers are affected, how risks will be controlled, and how duty holders will work together to plan and manage health and safety.

Co-operation

Co-operation means that, if you are approached by other duty holders wanting to consult with you on a WHS matter, you should respond to any reasonable requests and assist them in meeting their duties.

Co-ordination

Co-ordination means that duty holders work together so that each person can meet their duty of care. This includes making sure that the measures you each put in place work effectively together to control the risks.

For example, you may not need to provide toilet facilities for your workers if they are already available, but you need to check that those facilities are in good working order, clean and accessible for your workers. Consultation, co-operation and co-ordination between you and the person providing those facilities will help to ensure that you can meet your duty.

KPI’s

KPI's are a valuable way of monitoring lagging or leading performance. Tracking them is, or should be, an integral part of any Safety Manager worth his or her salt’s role.

While lagging indicators can be used to track incidents that have occurred (past data) and assist in sourcing the root of the problem, leading indicators are more predictive by nature, and will help companies to address and prevent potential issues and incidents from occurring in the first place – arguably a far better goal to strive for!

Characteristics of a good KPI

A good KPI is a ‘SMART’ KPI:

Specific – it should be clear what is being measured

Measurable – it should be measurable against set standards

Achievable – target a realistic/achievable goal

Relevant – it should offer insight into overall safety performance

Timely – KPI’s should follow a set time-frame

Like other business units, Health and Safety departments are no exception to tracking key metrics that show performance.

However, while you may not be reporting any accidents, this doesn’t necessarily mean you can rest on your laurels and assume that your safety operations are effective. Past data will not help you to identify potential issues or hazards; and if you’re failing to report near misses, or any ‘band-aid’ or quick-fix solutions that have been implemented, then you may well be missing the bigger picture.

While developing reliable health and safety metrics will largely depend on your goals and what you want to accomplish, effectively measuring health and safety KPI’s will help you on your way to achieving a robust safety culture. We’ve put together a list of some of the essential metrics you should be tracking:

Reported Accidents/Incidents

This first point should be taken as a given – a lagging indicator in its most obvious form. However, it really does provide the health and safety department with a high-level benchmark and is required by law for work-related accidents resulting in a 'reportable' injury, for most UK workplaces under RIDDOR* rules.

Reporting Near Misses

As already mentioned, a hugely misrepresented area for many organisations is the reporting ‘near-miss’ incidents. Effectively reporting near misses and reviewing the mitigating strategies that ensue means that organisations can go a long way to preventing potential disasters. But how will anyone know of the success in this area if it’s not being tracked?

Tracking near misses involves employee participation. Make sure the right reporting channels are in place to give near miss incidents the same level of priority as actual incidents and actively encourage employees to feed back without fear of punitive action.

Safety Audits and Inspections

Are you keeping track of the number of audits and inspections that being undertaken across the business on a monthly/quarterly/annual basis? The routine auditing of work processes is an essential part of due diligence ahead of starting a job. Keep count of completed audits and inspections and note who they are completed by to help you keep track of changes in standards – either up or down from your baseline.

Corrective Actions

While fixing issues is clearly advisable, it’s not enough to simply fix them and not report them. Identifying, fixing and tracking problems will help you to identify patterns arising within the workplace from similar incidents, as well as assist in fixing similar issues more efficiently. This will also serve to hold employees accountable for the part their actions played in a given situation.

Employee Training

Get it right! The relevant health and safety training for all staff, at all levels, within any organisation, is paramount to establishing good practice. Making sure that employees are aware of all your company’s procedures and policies is essential for creating a safety culture and raising engagement levels. Keeping track of employee training records, while seemingly a thankless task, is vital to keeping you compliant and demonstrates a proactive approach to company-wide health and safety efforts. For many businesses, it’s essential that training certificates don’t expire, and therefore, this key metric cannot be overlooked!

Spend

No different to any other department, you will, of course, need to track your spend in health and safety on the various initiatives outlined above in order to be able to report back ‘up-the-line’ and ultimately improve the ‘bottom line’.

The feedback arising from key OHS metrics will help in motivating leaders and are key to maintaining good management systems. A combination of lagging and leading indicators will help you to set the scene for good organisational safety, as well as putting improvement measures in place.