Strategies for Writing Effective Safety Procedures
Safety procedures are an important section of a safety management system and form a bridge between the general statements manufactured in safety policies and the duty specific instructions within specific things like JSAs. The longer and more complicated they are the less likely they will be read and, therefore, the less likely they will be applied which defeats the reason really.
Someone once said that explanations ought to be as brief as you possibly can and no briefer which certainly pertains to safety procedures.Here are several suggestions for keeping them brief and clear to see.
Keeping Safety Procedures Focused
When writing safety procedures it is sometimes easy to drift into areas in a roundabout way related to the main topics the procedure. One way of avoiding these distractions is to draw a flow chart. What is the start point, what is the finish point and just how do people get from one to the other? Developing a flowchart helps you concentrate on the considerations people must to do to meet the purpose of the safety procedure. In addition, it makes sure no steps are missed.
Template
A common template not merely makes writing safety procedures easier it also allows users to understand their structured and where to find the information they want. No one wants to have to scroll through pages of irrelevant information to obtain the bit that they want.
If your business already includes a document control system then it is highly likely a template already exists for business procedures. By using this template aligns the safety procedures with other business procedures with which your readers are already familiar. View website makes them more prone to be accepted and used.
Keep it Real
George Orwell (he wrote 1984, Animal Farm and "Big Brother" was his idea) wrote:
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.
Often safety procedures seem to be more of a wish list of things the safety group wish to happen rather than reflecting what is achievable and I am guilty of the myself. Sometimes management want certain requirements written into safety procedures despite the fact that implementation in the field is unlikely. Regardless of the reason, the writer is most likely aware of what's happening and over-justifies certain requirements making the safety procedure more challenging and complex to comprehend.
To greatly help avoid this, have some field staff that you trust or whose opinion you value review your safety procedure before distributing it for formal consultation. Discuss it with them explaining what you're attempting to do and amend it to reflect the comment you receive. The support of the field staff, who already have to implement the safety procedure, should assist you to convince management among others of the approach you've taken.
Language
It really is all too easy to slip into "safety speak" or use "fancy" long words when writing safety procedures. It may shortcut the procedure but it doesn't help the people likely to read and follow the procedure understand what you're discussing. So keep it simple, explain any jargon terms you might use and prevent those long words that no one can pronounce let alone understand.
Length
Long safety procedures are often filled up with "waffle" or complicated by attempting to address too much.
Safety procedures are action documents. They ought to concentrate on providing clear direction what should be done, by whom, when and how. They direct employees on how the business enterprise expects them to behave when met with a particular hazard. There is absolutely no place for the sort of generalised comments found in safety policies and restating policy statements in procedures adds nothing of value.
In some cases a single safety procedure can contain everything about a particular hazard and still be reasonably short and and simple. However, some hazards tend to be more complicated and are better dealt with in a number of separate but related safety procedures. For example, instead of have one long procedure coping with contractor management, it can be better to have several smaller ones coping with the various aspects such as specification development, tender evaluation, induction etc.
Legislation and External Standards
Compliance with a safety procedure should automatically produce compliance with legal requirements and any external standard that the business enterprise needs to comply with. There is no need to reference the legislation or standard or, even worse, cite it word after word for a couple reasons:
In general I have found that people turn off when you start talking about these things;
It creates the feeling that the business cares more about complying with legal and external requirements than they do about the safety of these workforce;
There's often no easy method of accessing these documents;
These requirements are often general and their application needs them to be interpreted. Different people could have differing interpretations. This may lead to debates about which interpretation is correct rather than the most effective way of dealing with a hazard. It's the businesses responsibility, in consultation with the workforce, to decide how legislation and external standards will be applied of their operations.
My view is that folks in the field have enough to do without being likely to know or interpret legislation. That is why businesses employ safety specialists.
Forms and Guidance Materials
Often, wordy details of what people are anticipated to do could be summarised right into a form. The wording in the safety procedure then becomes a simple "Complete form ABC". The proper execution can contain information on how to complete it if necessary.
Guidelines could be appended to the safety procedure providing additional but non-essential information on what people are supposed to be doing. Such things as legal summaries, extracts from standards etc can be included as a guideline that those interested can refer to.
Other Procedures
If your organization already has other management systems in place you will find a good chance that a few of the procedures necessary for your safety management system have already been created. They may need some changes to support the safety requirements but these may only be minor. This prevents duplication and is one step towards integrating safety into general business practices. Areas where this maybe possible include:
Administrative functions such as for example document control;
Risk management practices;
Incident reporting and investigation;
Hazard management such as chemicals (if there's an environmental management system set up).
Even if full integration is not possible, cross referencing to other, non-safety related procedures may help reduce the size of one's safety procedures.
Wrapping it Up
Safety procedures are the backbone of a safety management system and the success of the system is largely dependent on how well the safety procedures are accompanied by the workforce. They have to be written in a way that makes it easy for the workforce to understand and follow. They need to give clear direction and, at the same time, be flexible enough to be utilized in a variety of situations. That's why is them a challenge to write. Hopefully the tips in this article will help you to successfully meet this challenge.