New guidance to help bosses better protect their workforces

Research commissioned by the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) has found a way to help organisations make their health and safety rules and procedures more relevant to the work they do and the staff they protect.

Researchers from Birmingham-based Health and Safety Technology and Management (HASTAM) and the University of Ballarat, Australia, have produced a guidance document that will help bosses develop health and safety rules that are a better fit for their business.

The 'Management of safety rules and procedures' guidance is aimed at senior occupational safety and health professionals and takes a practical look at how health and safety management systems can be reviewed and improved. The document contains nine steps to consider in good rule management, as well as examples of what good practice looks like. At the same time, it aims to separate health and safety from its stereotypical image of bureaucracy.

Professor Andrew Hale, an emeritus professor from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and chairman of HASTAM and Dr David Borys, of the University of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia, carried out the project.

IOSH's Dr Luise Vassie said: “This research confirms why the views and opinions of workers are so important when introducing health and safety systems - they, after all, are the ones with on-the-job experience of their company's operations. It shows that employees' needs can be matched with good health and safety practice.”

The purpose of the project was to help companies make their safety rules more effective and efficient by better controlling risk.

Professor Hale said: “This is about providing a framework for people who manage health and safety, to assist them in achieving a higher level of protection. We wanted to help companies reduce the number and complexity of rules, without leaving people more open to risks from the work they do. And the guidance sets out an intervention plan to help senior occupational safety and health professionals achieve this.”

The research looked at safety and health rules from two perspectives - the first, from a top down perspective, where managers and supervisors make rules that aren't to be violated. The second sees rules as dynamic and built from experience, bottom up from the workplace.

Dr Borys added: “The guidance marries both of these views. It acknowledges that rules need managing and should arrive out of an explicit process that can be known to all and audited. But it also recognises that they need to be formed from knowledge at the sharp end - from those workers who operate the processes.”

Professor Hale added: “It's also about shrinking the gap between rules and reality, making them applicable in practice and clear to everyone. In developing them, the working culture of an organisation must be taken into consideration - a one size fits all approach won't work and situations and needs will also change over time.

“Reviewing health and safety rules in this way will mean staff are better protected for the future, not only because the rules fit their work, but because they also understand what they are there for.”

The guidance sets out a process and practical examples for achieving good practice in managing safety rules. But also contained in the research document is a literature review on past studies of rule-making and rule management. It documents the argument against ever-increasing rule sets, where organisations reduce risk control simply to compliance and apportion blame after rule violations. Many then write new rules to outlaw that behaviour.

Dr Vassie added: “In reality, we know that good health and safety is about proportionality and consideration of all the facts. Understanding how rules are formed and how they work in reality can only be a good step in ensuring that employees get the protection that they deserve.

A copy of the research can be found at: www.iosh.co.uk/rulesandprocedures