Are we our own worst enemy?

It is a common cliché: safety is a line responsibility, right… However, is this really understood?

Nobody is more equipped with the authority and influence to change the safety culture of employees and contractors than line management. Obviously, health, safety and enviroment (HSE) professionals have an important role to play in developing the desired safety culture, however, their role is to coach and guide the process.

They can, however, be their own worst enemies at times, as they tend to take over the responsibility from line management in managing the safety and health of the teams.

They do this for a number of reasons: a desire to get things done, to build relationships with line management, not wanting to challenge the structures or process of the company, and because some still believe that managing safety is the responsibility of HSE professionals.

On the other hand, line management is often just too happy to let the HSE professionals take on the responsibility for the safety and health of their teams, as this frees them up to focus on other issues, including productivity and machine efficiencies.

Safety and health issues of the production teams is not an add-on to the responsibilities of line management, and it’s not uncommon for line managers to call on the HSE professionals when they feel safety and health needs to be a focus.

Line managers should, however, integrate their roles related to safety and health into their daily activities of running of the business.

Companies should do away with the slogan “safety first” and rather move towards “safe production first” or “safe engineering first”, as this promotes the integration of safety and health issues.

What to do to transfer the roles and responsibilities

HSE professionals need to understand what items are their responsibility as well as their role in coaching and guiding line managers to take responsibility for the safety and health of their respective teams.

Making line managers responsible does not diminish the role of the HSE professional. However, when line managers understand their areas of responsibility and they are given the tools and the know-how, this strengthens the safety culture, and, in turn, makes the job of the HSE professional easier.

To ensure maximum impact, HSE professionals cannot just transfer the responsibility and believe they have done their job. They need to ensure that there is a common understanding of who is responsible for what, and to ensure clear understanding of exactly what is required. To do this, companies should:

• conduct a workshop with senior line management and HSE professionals to agree on who should be responsible for what elements of health and safety;

• avoid using only off-the-shelf/generic answers and develop the roles and responsibilities that are aligned to the company structure and maturity level;

• obtain full buy-in and support from senior management;

• develop a clear guide on who is responsible for what elements, including what support should be provided by the HSE professionals; and

• train the various leaders and the HSE professionals in their respective roles and responsibilities.

Key roles and responsibilities

There is no defined list when developing and agreeing on the key roles and responsibilities. However, these could be categorised into three elements:

• administrative issues;

• operational issues; and

• auditing, follow-up and improvement-related issues.

Sites could even split the roles and responsibilities into three categories of management to ensure a clearer understanding of who needs to do what. This would include line managers, first line managers (supervisors and foremen), and HSE professionals.

The tables below provide some examples that can be listed as part of the three elements of roles and responsibilities. The complete guide needs to be tailored to the company or site-specific requirements, structures or maturity level and should be broken down into sub-elements.

The guide could also provide details of what documents should be referenced to provide additional information for each of the elements where applicable.

What should companies do?

In order to shift the mindset from the HSE department being responsible for safety to making it a line responsibility, it is important to have clear guidelines on who is responsible for what elements of the overall safety and health programmes.

This change will not happen overnight and will take time to entrench in the way business is run, however it will be more difficult to change the safety culture and move to the interdependent phase of safety culture if the roles and responsibilities are not clearly defined, understood and supported by all levels of management in the company.

The tables provide only a few of examples of what could be included in the roles and responsibilities guideline.

Full support and backing for this approach is needed by senior management to ensure success. This is also not a fix-all option, but it is more than likely to contribute to developing the desired safety culture and, in turn, assist in achieving continuous improvement in the safety performance.

Administrative Issues

Operational Issues

Auditing, follow up and improvement