1. Implement the Procedures for Health and Safety Performance Evaluation

Incidents identified as detrimental to health and safety and reported, are evaluated to determine safety and health performance.

Incidents that have been identified as detrimental to health and safety and have been reported must be evaluated by management, the safety and health committee and even outside consultants/government representatives to see how an organisation’s safety and health performance is. The next step is to determine the cause(s) of the accident. Has the incident occurred before? What is the level of loss? these are some questions the panel evaluating the safety and health performance seek answers for. It may take a great deal more time to accurately determine the weaknesses in the management system, or root causes, that contributed to the conditions and practices associated with the incident.

It's important to know that most incidents detrimental to safety and health in the workplace are the result of unsafe behaviours that produced them. Individual unsafe behaviours may occur at any level of the organization.

Some examples of unsafe employee/manager behaviours include:

Some incidents are the result of underlying system weaknesses that have somehow contributed to the existence of hazardous conditions and unsafe behaviours that represent surface causes of accidents. Root causes always pre-exist surface causes. Inadequately designed system components have the potential to feed and nurture hazardous conditions and unsafe behaviours. If root causes are left unchecked, surface causes will flourish.

Incidents may be separated into two categories:

i. System design weaknesses:  Missing or inadequately designed policies, programs, plans, processes and procedures will affect conditions and practices generally throughout the workplace. Defects in system design represent hazardous system conditions.

ii. System implementation weaknesses:  Failure to initiate, carry out or accomplish safety policies, programs, plans, processes, and procedures. Defects in implementation represent ineffective management behaviour. 

• Training program not in place
• Poorly written plans
• Inadequate process
• No procedures in place
• Safety policies/rules are not being enforced.
• Safety training is not being conducted
• Adequate supervision is not conducted
• Incident/Accident analysis is inconsistent
• Lockout/tag-out procedures are not reviewed annually

A good safety and health policy for an organization are supposed to address all the above-mentioned principles. If it does, then incidents that are detrimental to safety and health are eliminated and the workplace is safe.