November 2020 Monthly Blog – How to write a good safety manual
Plan-do-check-act
The combination oven installed in my kitchen this year is so fiendishly complicated, it came with a sizeable manual to explain how to use it, maintain it, and troubleshoot any problems.
In a way, your health & safety manual needs to be regarded as an instruction manual for the uninitiated.
If, say, a new manager joins and the health & safety adviser is away on extended leave, the manager should be able to understand how the H&S management system works by reading the manual. It should show the manager what his/her responsibilities are, what documentation has to be completed – why and when, and how the workflow operates.
The manual should start with a signed statement of policy/intent. Use of the proper noun “I”, as in “I expect…” or “I require…”, enables the CEO to stamp his/her personal authority on the statement.
Recognising that most staff invariably seem to under-deliver in terms of H&S performance, the CEO should employ the old negotiating tactic of asking for more than he realistically expects to achieve – and demand the highest standards possible. That way, the CEO will arrive at half-decent standards. If, however, the CEO lowers the bar with guff about minimal legislative compliance, or doing only what is “reasonably practicable”, the CEO may later find themselves explaining to customers, media, insurers and/or enforcing authorities why standards had sunk to rock bottom.
The policy statement need only be short as it will be followed by a couple of dozen or so detailed procedures to do with (e.g.) incident reporting, risk assessment, emergency response, and so forth.
The manual should also list up to ten SMART Policy Objectives which focus Board attention on the most important aspects – to be regularly reviewed, then the goalposts moved with more stretching objectives the following year.
Focus on the present and on people
Avoid use of the future tense such as: “The Operations Director will…” or, worse still: “The Operations Director should…” since this might imply that the Operations Director is not currently doing what he ought. Far better to use the present tense: “The Operations Director does…”.
The least effective electrical safety procedure I came across stated somewhat baldly:
“The Company will regularly check the safety of electrical appliances…”.
The upshot was that no-one checked the safety of electrical appliances as, following a couple of business reshuffles, everyone assumed that someone else was dealing with it.
Nor was anyone tasked with carrying out workplace monitoring to notice that PAT test stickers had become years out of date.
Avoid vagueness by the use of job titles in bold typeface such as: “The Facilities Manager maintains a programme of portable appliance testing by employing a competent electrician to test appliances in accordance with Schedule A”.
Make everything verifiable
Everything in your manual must be auditable and evidenced.
Continuing the above example, you could add that:
“The Facilities Manager maintains a portable appliance register on the Facilities database and uploads the results of appliance tests. The Health & Safety Manager audits [still using present tense] all the Facilities Department procedures and documentation annually, and reports summary results to the Risk Committee/Main Board. H&S Department full audit reports are archived in XXX database where they remain available for external verification.”.
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More detail on this can be gleaned from Arinite’s contribution article: myhrtoolkit How to write a great Health and Safety policy as an SME.
If you need help with formulating a health & safety manual, please do not hesitate in making contact.
Arinite has developed expertise in writing such policies for companies around the globe. Please call our office 0207 947 9581, or type an enquiry to:
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