Category: OHSMS Documentation
Checklists & Christmas
Every year we do a Christmas dinner party – a three-course English Feast with Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding and a dessert we call “The Amy” (Butter Tarts with Stilton Cheese). The menu is set and draws its inspiration from my husband’s heritage (England and Canada) and my Midwest upbringing (Iowa). We have been doing the same meal for the last 15 years.
Once I started developing and implementing management systems, I could not resist applying management system theory to this event. I developed a Christmas Party Checklist. This checklist sets out the various tasks that need to be done and has blanks for assigning responsibilities and checking off each task when it is done.
Why do I use a checklist?
One year, I found the strawberries for the appetizer course still in the refrigerator when I put the leftovers away. Another year, I had to scramble to find the meat platter while the guests watched from the table.
This checklist helps the party go smoothly and, more importantly, it helps me relax and actually enjoy the party because I know I am not going to forget anything important.
The morning after the party I make notes and additions to the checklist and file it away for the following year.
So what does this have to do with OHSAS 18001?
Checklists are an important part of a management system. As with our Christmas party, they prevent you from missing important tasks. They also help make your job more manageable and enjoyable – that is, if they are done right.
Want to learn more about creating effective checklists?
Click here to check out my previous blog and sign up for my mini-course (starting January 16, 2012) focused on checklist creation.
p.s. It was a great webinar Tuesday on ISO 19011:2011 – The Impact on Management System Auditing. Thank you to those of you who participated and submitted questions for the Q&A. Come back here next week for a link you can use to view this presentation.
© ENLAR Compliance Services, Inc. (2011)
7 Steps to Creating Effective Checklists
In my last blog, I discussed the importance of checklists in saving lives.
Checklists are everywhere.
They are an integral part of many personal activities – from completing your tax return to communicating symptoms to your doctor. Checklists also play an important role in managing many business processes.
Checklists will be an important part of your OHSMS documentation.
In order to be effective, checklists need to be intelligently designed and routinely used. They also need to be controlled.
So how do you go about creating a great checklist?
Checklists Save Lives
Checklists are essential to successful business operations. Checklists are an integral part of an occupational health and safety management system. More importantly, checklists save lives.
This result is most obvious in medicine where the use of surgical checklists has saved thousands of lives and untold suffering. The importance of checklists in medicine was highlighted in a 2007 article in the New Yorker Magazine, The Checklist. The most dramatic of these incentives is the international adoption of a one-page Surgical Safety Checklist developed, promoted and disseminated by the World Health Organization.
Click here to download a copy of this checklist.
There are numerous uses of checklists in OH&S management systems. In fact, checklists are one of the most effective way of creating management system procedures and work instructions to meet the OHSAS 18001 requirements.
Some of the OH&S uses of checklists include –
- Inspection checklists – for forklift trucks, fire extinguishers and other safety-critical devices, equipment and supplies.
- Plans and permits – for confined space entry, hot work and equipment lockout where the sequence of tasks and adequacy of precautions are critical.
- Emergency preparedness – for making sure equipment, materials and personnel will be ready and available when an incident occurs.
- Risk assessments – for evaluating the hazards and risks associated with materials, equipment and tasks.
- Internal audit protocols – for making sure that OHSMS audits are complete, inclusive and cost-effective.
As regulations, activities and organizations become more complex, checklists become increasingly important for ensuring that nothing is missed. This is why pilot checklists were developed in aviation in the 1930s. This is why surgical checklists are being aggressively promoted in medicine today. This is why most OH&S management systems would benefit from the use of appropriately-designed checklists.
In my next blog, I will cover the 5 steps you should follow in order to develop good OHSMS checklists.
In the meantime, click here to request a copy of my EHSMS Implementation Checklist.
© ENLAR® Compliance Services, Inc. (2011)
Control of Documented Information
In a previous blog, I discussed the new High Level Structure and identical text requirements that has been proposed for all ISO management system standards. One of the proposed changes is to eliminate the document control and record control elements and replace them with a new provision requiring control of “documented information”. Documented information is somewhat vaguely defined in this new scheme as “the information required to be controlled and maintained by an organization”.
Although this may be seen as progressive by those who developed this new management system structure, it is likely to create confusion on the part of users of the standards who are not information management experts.
There are important reasons for distinguishing between the documents that need to be controlled in a management system and record retention requirements. Even though both document control and record control are control of documented information, their purpose and use is very different.
Should I Write a Procedure?
One of the difficult questions that OH&S managers face is – “Do we need a written procedure for [some process]?” The dilemma is that although written procedures are a necessary part of an occupational safety and health management system – if you create too many formal procedures your OHSMS becomes complex, cumbersome and unwieldy.
I just got done reading an article in the October 2009 Quality Progress Magazine that sets out a nifty tool for making this decision – a 2 x 2 matrix for deciding whether or not to standardize a process. Although the example given in this article – Building a Consensus – is for a quality system process, it can be easily adapted to making standardization decisions in an OH&S management system.
Try it out for your OH&S management system and let me know – “Did it work?” - by posting your comments below.
© ENLAR® Compliance Services, Inc. (2009)
Information Overload
One of the signfiicant tasks associated with implementing any management system is managing information – typically lots of information. Usually, way too much information. As I discussed in a previous post – Data Sprawl – Not Just an IT Problem, the fact that we are now managing “virtual information” leads us to believe that the more information we have the better.
Not true.
As this video points out, at some point more information simply makes us stupid.
This is an important point to remember as you are establishing, implementing and maintaining your OH&S management system. As you are developing your procedures, programs, forms, inspection sheets, training programs, meeting minutes, e-mail updates…… remember that the human brain only has so much capacity.
Use it wisely.
© ENLAR® Compliance Services, Inc. (2009)
Creating OHSMS Documentation
A reader recently asked –
Why is that OH&S management system manuals so often repeat the language of the OHSAS 18001 standard – isn’t that redundant?
Yes and No.
