IA4 Measuring and Reviewing Health and Safety Performance Flashcards
What is performance Measurement?
Performance measurement is the process of collecting, analyzing and reporting information regarding the performance of an individual, group, organization, system or component.
What is the purpose of health and safety performance measurement?
- Provides information on how the system operates in practice.
- Compare actual performances with targets
- Assess effectiveness of H&S objectives.
- Check that risks are being managed.
- Assess effectiveness of H&S arrangements.
- Identify areas of improvement.
- Provide a basis for continual improvement.
- Makes recommendations for review of current management system.
- Improve the public image of the organisation.
Organisations need to use a range of measures to determine whether objectives have been met.
Give the required forms of monitoring systems
- Active (or proactive) monitoring, taking action before problems occur e.g. loss events.
- Reactive monitoring, taking action after a problem occurs.
Outline the types of performance measures
-
Active/Reactive
* *Active** monitoring focus on the prevention of loss and on compliance and conformance. Measures success.
* *Reactive** monitoring analyzes data obtained after loss or potentail loss events. Measures failure. -
Objective/Subjective
* *Objective** measures are those not influenced by the judgement, personal feelings or opinions of the assessor e.g. reading of a noise meter.
* *Subjective** measures are those influenced by the judgement, personal feelings or opinions of the assessor. Different assessors will have different opinions e.g. the reasonably practicable concept. -
Qualitative/Quantitative
* *Qualitative** measures are not represented numerically, they use descriptive data e.g. the risk levels low, medium, high in RA.
* *Quantitative** measures are numerical e.g. statistics values, number of reported accidents, frequencies of accidents, etc.
What is the objective of active health and safety monitoring?
1. Gives feedback to the organisation on:
- Current risk control strategies
- Compliance with legal requirements
- Conformance with organisation’s own standards, processess and procedures.(e.g. Check that health and safety plans have been implemented)
2. Prevent loss causing events by identifying hazards and risks
3. Demonstrate commitment
4. Set the basis for continual improvement
“It can thus identify risks of accidents, injuries, ill-health and loss and by ensuring appropriate health and safety systems and procedures are in place, allows the initiative to be taken before things go wrong”
What is the objective of reactive health and safety monitoring?
- Analyze data relating to loss causing events (accidents, occupational ill-health, property/environmental damage, etc.)
- Identify causes of loss causing events
- Contributes to risk control management by defining causality of loss events
- Build historical measurements with analyzed data
- Demonstrate commitment
- Set the basis for continual improvement
Give the meaning of key performance indicators
- Quantifiable measures that an organisation can use to evaluate its effectiveness and its progress towards achieving its strategic and operational goals.
- Quantifiable measures that an organisation can use to determine whether objectives have been met.
- A Key Performance Indicator is a measurable value that demonstrates how effectively a company is achieving key business objectives.
How can a KPI be effective?
To be effective they need:
- To be measured frequently
- Should be easy to understand, in terms of corrective actions that needs to be taken
- Should be relevant to the senior management team
List a range of measures available for active monitoring
The extent to which plan and objectives have been set and met, including:
- Extent of compliance (results of audits, hygiene surveys, safety inspections)
- Commitment to H&S (safety policy, budget resources, training employees on H&S, leadership)
- Number of risk assessments completed
- Number of safety committee meetings
- Number of H&S tours performed by senior managers.
- Frequency of H&S audits
- Health surveillance data and records
- Employees exposure sampling report
- Employees attitude to risks and risk control, etc.
List a range of measures available for reactive monitoring
- Health surveillance reports
- Cases of occupational diseases
- Near misses
- damage-only accidents
- Lost-time accidents
- Reportable major injuries
- Fatalities
- Sickness absences
- Enforcement actions
- Complaints by the workforce
- Compliants by the public
List active monitoring techniques
- Health and safety auditing (internally by qualified employees or externally by specialist consultants)
- Workplace inspections, walk the premises looking for hazards and non-compliance with legislation, rules or safe practice.
- Safety sampling
- Safety surveys
- Safety tours
- Safety conversations and behavioural observations
What is the role of the in-house Health and Safety practitioner in audits performed by third parties?
- Ensure the suitable documentation is available for the external auditor.
- Communicate and organize interviews with involved persons in the organisation.
- Advise on what observations are likely to be most productive in assessing control systems.
Give factors what should be considered when setting health and safety
performance objectives
Some factors to be considered are:
- Consultation with the workforce
- Communication at all levels
- Consider resposabilities and methods (who and how)
- Consider resources (e.g. budgetary)
- SMART objectives
- Prioritization of key objectives
- Define duration e.a. long-term or short-term objectives
Define health and safety benchmarking
Health and Safety benchmarking is a planned process by which an organisation compares :
- Internally, its health and safety processes and performance with another department within the same organisation.
- Externally, its health and safety processes and performance with another organisation.
Give the potential benefits of benchmarking
- Improve reputation
- Allows to learn from others, avoiding wasteful learning cycle
- Enables stronger relationships with collaborating organisations, e.g. customers, suppliers, contractors, etc.
- Gives a clear perspective of the real organisation’s performance, the organisation may have a wrong perspective of its own performance
- Improve management of H&S
- Reduce risks
- Develops H&S competence
