Need some help with understanding, implementing, or tweaking your workplace Safety Management System? 

Implementing or tweaking your Safety Management System?  FREE Tools and webinar!

It can be daunting to start building a Safety Management System (SMS) from the ground up or knowing when it needs revision.  However, it can help keep your employees safe at work - leading to less downtime and expenses associated with worker injuries, as well as help in meeting your businesses' regulatory WHS requirements.

Although there is no one-size-fits-all, there are some fundamental aspects that need to be understood to develop and implement a viable SMS.  Different industries have different perspectives and considerations, but all aim at making the environment in which workers operate more robust to minimize harm to employees.  To assist with furthering your SMS adoption strategies, it can help to benchmark your company against different industry standards.

To help with this review of other industries' SMS parameters and to help focus ongoing considerations in your own SMS implementation process, why not turn to an industry that has had mandated SMSs in place for over 10 years – Aviation. You may like to review the material provided by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) in their FREE SMS Resource Toolkit or attend one of their free one-hour Webinars.  Access the CASA link below to review this free information.

What can I do next? (casa.gov.au)

Want a Work Health and Safety Management Plan that you can use as a guide to help set up your SMS. Comcare provides a free document that directs you to what activities need to be undertaken, gain your company’s results, and then fill in the blanks. It provides a comprehensive outline for your SMS plan and provides documented evidence of your health and safety management endeavours. You can access such a free tool at the Comcare URL listed here.

Work health and safety management plan (comcare.gov.au)

These are just a start to get your workplace health and safety journey underway – or back on track. You may just pick up a few tips or you may save yourself a lot of time, effort, and money in setting up your own SMS.

Author: Majella McDonald, Senior Incident Investigator, ICAM Australia