Why have a Health & Safety Management System?

Many municipalities and private companies are implementing health and safety management systems. Why? What are they and why are they important?

No one wants to hurt their staff, no one intends to have serious injuries or illness on their site. But not wanting to have an injury is not the same thing as actively working to prevent an injury. A health and safety management system is a tool to proactively identify hazards to the health and safety of workers, and do something about those hazards. If health and safety isn't managed, the potential for incidents increases. Incidents can result in:

• Injuries to Staff

Employees should expect to leave work at the end of the day in as good condition as when they arrived. Society expects employers to protect their workers from harm. Municipalities have an obligation to develop and maintain safe and viable communities; this obligation includes their own staff.

Municipal workers continue to suffer acute injuries such as broken bones, burns, head injuries, etc. In addition, musculoskeletal injuries (such as carpal tunnel syndrome) are an increasing concern. These injuries can have long term impacts on the workers and their families.

• Financial Impacts

Incidents are expensive! An incident (that is, any unplanned event) has costs associated with it. If a worker is injured, there will be workers' compensation costs, and these costs are rising. But even if there is no injury, incidents can result in production delays, equipment damage, material losses, administrative time (some one has to price out replacement equipment, do the purchase orders, etc.) and lower productivity.

The WCB paid out $5.8 million for injuries that occurred to municipal employees in 2002. In addition the WCB continued to pay out compensation for ongoing claims (injuries that occurred prior to 2002, but were still being managed). Generally the costs paid for current injuries only account for approximately 1/3 of the annual costs paid by the WCB. Therefore the likely total costs paid in 2002 for injuries to municipal employees was approximately $17 million.

• Compliance Issues

Health and safety at the worksite is a shared responsibility. Employers must ensure that they have done everything reasonably practicable to protect workers from injury and illness. Workers must do what they can to protect their own health and safety, and that of their co-workers.

Unplanned events should stop and make us question whether everything reasonable was in fact done to prevent that unplanned event. Non-compliance with the legal requirements can result in orders, or in the most serious situations, fines or prison sentences.

A good health and safety management system is one that has the well being of workers as its core value. Management must actively lead the program, but participation of everyone in the organization is critical to make the system truly successful. Such a system will result in a reduction of incidents, and the human and financial costs associated with them.