Safety Management System and role of Safety Specialists

Safety Management System and role of Safety Specialist

This article provides information about the basic concept of the Safety Management System (SMS), its definition, its history, the elements, the pillar of SMS, how to influence safe behavior, safety promotions, the concept of risk. , how to control the risk, how to monitor the performance of the safety management system and the role of the safety specialist / practitioner while developing and maintaining the health and safety management system.

Safety Management System (SMS)

Safety Management system (SMS) provides the systematic & structural approach to manage the workplace risk by continuous process of identification and evaluation of workplace hazards and assurance of effectiveness of controls to prevent incidents / accidents. It also helps organization to improve their business performance, brand value, customer relation, employee’s & social moral, social wellbeing and financial aspect by minimizing the losses.

Safety management system (SMS) provides perfect structure and clear guidelines to any organization for managing workplace health and safety by establishing, implementing and maintaining the organizational health and safety Policy, framework of roles and responsibilities, safety culture, emergency preparedness, Risk management and control.

It also provides the systematic approach on planning and implementation of safety including safety promotion, performance evaluation, action for improvement and audit. It promotes continual improvement in health and safety system for sustainable business.

Safety management system definition

“Safety management system is a systematic approach to managing the safety, including the necessary organizational structures, accountabilities, policies, and procedures”.

Why it is important to implement a safety management system

International Labour Organization (ILO) publishing global statistics related to the number of accidents and disease cases that are reported and recorded globally. This accident/ incident statistics alerting and helping the different organizations and individuals to manage health and safety standards within the workplace for various reasons.

If we study this data published by ILO and other similar global organization, it is clearly indicating three main factors responsible for implementing and maintaining the best safety management system.  

Factor-1: Moral: Several people being killed, injured, or made sick by their work, morally it is unacceptable, and society demands that people should be safe in their workplace. Its moral duty that one person must care another.

Factor-2: Social:  Its legal requirement and law govern the conduct of businesses/organizations (whether small or large). An employer has a duty to provide a safe place of work, equipment, safe plant and safe systems of work, adequate training and supervision, and competent employees.

Factor-3: Economical: Accident cause direct and indirect costs (loss), some of these losses can be insured but most of them are uninsured. Its truth that accidents and ill-health cost money.

It is truth that almost all organization are more focused on financial aspects. To minimize the financial losses, we must focus on direct and indirect costs both.

Direct costs: Cost for first-aid treatment, sick pay, overtime, costs incurred to cover their absence, cost to repair of damaged equipment, lost/damaged product cost, lost production time, fines, and compensation payment, etc.

Indirect costs:  Time taken to investigate the accident, the costs of additional control measures to prevent recurrence, comply with enforcement notices, cost associated with the training and new recruitment, loss of morale could impact productivity, or damage the organization’s public image or customer relationships.

 Read more on "why to maintain health and safety best standards"

History of safety management system

Before 1970, There was Bureau of Labour Office regulated employee safety standards. The federal government's health and safety efforts and regulations were rare before OSHA, but significant progress has led to the formation of the department.

With the industrial development and lot of constructions activities recorded before 1887, unsafe conditions including dangerous chemical and negligible safety standards were responsible for many fatalities. Therefore, Massachusetts was the first state to pass security laws in 1887 and the Department of Labour was created in 1913 by President Taft. In 1933, Frances Perkins became the first woman to sit in the cabinet when she was appointed secretary of labor. There, created the Bureau of Labor Standards that helped states improve safety standards in the workplace.

Initially the safety standards were more focused of machine guarding and basic safety precautions including emergency exit. Then they started periodic workplace inspection by regulating agencies.

Also, in earlier years .ie. in 1930, generally organizations were set standard for fatality rate in relation with financial aspect, for examples, they expect one death for every million dollars spent on a project.

Also, during incident investigation, team were more focused on “what” and “why” happened, Incident investigation was type of “fault finding” rather than ‘fact’ finding. The recommendation was most focused on technical upgradation and product quality improvement. The safety system was more reactive type.

After 1970s, peoples then started to focus on human factor, human psychology, behaviour along with other technical factors. While investigating the incidences, they started considering the human factor, introduced the word “HOW” along with “WHY” and thus safety process become proactive.

Proactive approach becomes the base of safety management system. The word “management system” introduced for system-based approach to framework the organizational strategy to manage the risk and assurance of controls over hazards. As safety is condition thus requires constant relook with changes in work environment and therefore safety management system must be dynamic. This need identified and introduced the concept of safety assurance and safety promotions.

The concept of safety management system introduced by International Labour Organization (ILO) by publishing ILO-OSH 2001, It provides the Guidelines on occupational safety and health management systems to assist organizations for implementation of safety management systems. The elements of the guidelines were safety policy, organization, planning & implementation, evaluation, and action for improvement.

Occupation health and safety standard was introduced by British and Polish standard and continue from 1999 to 2018 internationally. OHSAS: 18001 was adopted internationally for certification but more.

Elements of safety management system

As the safety management system is a systematic approach to managing the safety, including the necessary organizational structures, accountabilities, policies, and procedures, ILO-OSH 2001 and OHSAS-81001 introduced the concept of  PDCA cycle, where “P” represent “PLAN”, “D” as ‘DO”, ‘”C” means “CHECK” and “A” represents “ACT”. This concept also used in many other standards like, ISO:9001, ISO 14001, etc.

Safety Management System

All these standards have common way of approach and the key elements of safety management systems are

1) Safety and health Policy: It is documented and clear statement shows the commitment of top management about safety and health within the organization at all levels.

2) Organising for safety:  It gives the framework of safety roles and responsibilities at all level, manpower competency, safety culture, behavior-based safety, emergency preparedness and response, first-aid, etc

3) Planning and Implementing: This is more related to hazard identification, risk assessment, risk evaluation, risk management by providing the controls, setting the safety objectives and targets, arrangement of resources, developing management programmes to achieve the safety targets, ensure the sources of information, ensure the safe system of  work along with permit to work system, etc.

4) Evaluation/ monitoring and measurement:  It is more related to monitoring and review the effectiveness of controls put in risk management and safety objective and targets. It may involve the monitoring of leading and lagging safety indicators by reviewing of safety performance, may include reviewing the accidents and ill-health statistics, the performance of safety targets, corrective actions against unsafe act and unsafe conditions, performance of safety management system other elements, etc.

5) Corrective and improvement actions: This element of safety management system focused on corrective/ improvement actions on deficiencies identified during review process.  It may require amending the company policy, risk controls, organization, resources and arrangement for implementation.

6) Safety management system audits: This element focused on health checkup of safety management system. It should be independent and systematic for detail examination of the safety management system. It gives the feedback to SMS system review process.

7) Continual Improvement: Continual improvement is stepwise improvement to promote sustainable business.  The safety management system should not stagnate as the static system degrades the performance of any management system. With the changes in the work environment, hazards and risks can also change and therefore to make the system more appropriate and useful for the organization, we must focus on continual improvement.

Safety management system components

Safety management system components can be summarized as management commitment in the form of Safety policy, safety objectives and targets, management programs or action plans to provide the means and method to achieve the safety objective and targets, resource allocation, roles and responsibilities at all level, competency related to safety, safety accountabilities, appointment of key safety personnel, planning and implementation, Risk management, safe system of work, monitoring and measurement, review, corrective actions, emergency response, audit, continual improvement and system documentation.

Four pillars of safety management system

We have already seen the elements of the safety management system according to ILO-OSH 2001 and OHSAS-81001 which is applicable to all types of industries and organizations. Now, following the advancement of the system and the organizations having the most critical operations like the aviation industries, the safety management system is summarized and implemented by comprising the main components below. These main components are also called the four pillars of the safety management system.

Four pillars of safety management system

1) Safety policy and safety objectives

2) Safety Risk Management (SRM)

3) Safety Assurance

4) Safety Promotion

All above pillars or components provides the systematic approach to managing the safety, including the necessary organizational structures, accountabilities, policies, and procedures. The ultimate goal is to reduce the risk at ALARP level by systematic process of safety assurance and continual improvement for sustainable business.

1) Safety policy and safety objectives

Safety policy must be documented, it must show the commitment of top management about continual improvement in safety and health within the organization, it must be relevant and appropriate to the organization and its functions. Safety policy must provide the scope for short terms and long terms organizational objectives.

A health and safety policy should be reviewed regularly so that it remains current and relevant. It is suggested to review the policy annually, however, there are other circumstances which could be considered for reviews.

The purpose of the review is to keep the policy up-to-date and accurate. During review, date of the previous review and current date must be recorded on policy documents.

Below are certain circumstances where policy must be reviewed:

After any changes in Legal obligations or introduction of new legislation applicable to the organization.

During any technological changes i.e. introduction of new equipment, plant or processes.

Organizational changes ie. changes to key personnel or changes to the management structure of the organization.

After any major incident/ accident, investigation, or risk assessment may suggest that policy is not effective.

Any non-compliance observed in audit and proved that it is not relevant to guideline and current conditions.

Any changes to the type of work that organization does.

Safety objective and Targets

Safety objectives can be derived from safety policy, legal requirements and risk assessment. Objectives must be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time framed) and monitored as per frequency set by organizations. Target should be set for each objective and must be achieved through systematic process of management programs or action plans.  The performance of objectives and targets should be reviewed periodically. It is common practice that management objectives are divided into departmental Key Performance Area (KPA) and Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for better monitoring and achieving the targets.

2) Safety Risk Management (SRM)

Risk management is the key component of safety management system. Without assessing the risk, we cannot decide the relevant safety controls to prevent the incidences or accidents. Risk assessment helps businesses to allocate the appropriate and adequate resources, to estimate the financial implications, to allocate the safety budget, the insurance coverage and much more.  This component, risk management, is the main input for deciding the organizational objective and targets.   

There are three types of risk assessment ie. Qualitative, Semi qualitative cum quantitative and Quantitative risk assessment.

Small scale industries and non-hazards industries are generally adopting qualitative risk assessment.

Medium scale industries and industries those are not handling any hazardous chemicals are generally adopting Qualitative and semi qualitative-cum-quantitative risk assessment method.  

Large scale industries, chemicals, refineries and petroleum (hazardous industries) are adopting both quantitative risk assessment (QRA) and Semi quantitative risk assessment (qualitative-cum-quantitative).

There are many techniques are being used to identify the hazards, prioritize it, analyze, and assess the risk to decide the controls based on risk level. Risk should be managed well to prevent accidents and to minimize the consequences. Risk is the product of likelihood and consequences.

Here is the suggested sequence of process for any risk management

a) Risk management procedure: Develop the risk management procedure to describe the systematic process of hazard identification and risk assessment. Here the risk matrix and competency criteria of risk assessment team is also set.

b) Hazard identification and prioritization: Identify the workplace hazards including the hazards related to each routine and non-routine activities.

c) Risk analysis: Analyze the risk by considering the existing controls, evaluating the legal requirements, considering the detection/ communication resources, type of activities (ie normal, abnormal or emergency), etc risk should be analyze. The main objective of risk analysis is to understand and analyze the safety issues,

d) Risk assessment: Assess the risk by set risk matrix and industrial acceptance criteria. Here we are deciding the risk level, whether it is acceptable or not. It helps to decide the appropriate cost-effective controls.

e) Deciding and providing the controls: Control the risk by ensuring and providing the adequate and effective controls. Below are hierarchy of controls

Hierarchy of controls

1.    Eliminate the hazards

2.    Substitute the hazards

3.    Isolate the hazard

4.    Use engineering controls.

5.    Use administrative controls.

6.    And last is use Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

i) Eliminate the hazards: It is the most effective control to bring the risk at negligible level but in most of the cases it is impracticable and difficult to implement in existing system/process. It may be implemented during designing phase but still it may not be cost effective.

ii) Substitute the hazards: This risk control method is very effective and may be implemented in existing process and most effectively implemented during designing stage but is expensive. Substituting the highly hazardous substance/chemical with less or nonhazardous one having same functionality without adverse the plant process is good idea.

iii) Isolate the hazard: This risk control method is mostly used by all organizations and effective method for reducing the risk level by isolating the hazard. It provides the barrier between hazard and occupant or working peoples. Machine guarding is the best example of isolating the hazard.

iv) Use engineering controls: Engineering control helps to remove the hazard at the source thus controlling exposures to the peoples in the workplace.  It provides the independent high level of protection to the occupants as it prevents the direct interactions with them.

v) Use administrative controls: It is less effective method of risk control and depends on human behaviour and organizational safety culture. It is adopted when there is no effective method suitable to reduce the hazard. It is time consuming and requires more effort to implement and sustain.

vi) Personal Protective Equipment (PPE): It is considered as last resort or last line of defense and should not be considered during risk management. But still it is important as it provide the barrier between hazard and workmen after failure of all above controls.

3) Safety assurance

As safety is sate or condition in which the risk is reduced to and maintained at or below acceptable level through continuous process of hazard identification and risk assessment,  and subject to change with changes in work environment, safety assurance component of safety management system  helps to evaluate the effectiveness of risk management. It helps to evaluate the effectiveness and relevancy of implemented controls over the hazards. It also supports to identify the new hazards due to changes in the work environment.

Safety assurance includes;

i. Safety performance monitoring and measurement

ii. Incident investigation

iii. The management of change

iv. Assurance of legal requirements

v. Inspection, monitoring, measurement, audits and effectiveness of corrective actions.

vi. Continual improvement

It is continuous practice to ensuring the controls over risk. It also helps to identify the problems/ defect proactively so that corrective measures can be taken to prevent non compliance or incidents.

4) Safety promotion

This component of safety management system is more related to create and improve the safety culture of an organization at all level. It includes

i. Training, education and competency

ii. Safety communication and awareness

iii. Participation & Consultation

i. Training, education and competency

If the workforce is competent for the tasks or work assigned to them, there is less risk to incident/accident. Competence is something related to individual qualification, skill and experience in particular subject or task. Training and education help to improve the skill of the individual. The organization must maintain the record and consider this factor during new recruitment. The identification of training need should be carried out annually on the basis of gap analysis. Line mangers/ supervisors must provide input to HR department by identifying the gap for training needs. Based on training need identification of the individual worker, HR or training department should organize the relevant training program to enhance the competency of workforce.

Safety management system training

Here are the two main factors that the organization may consider when developing health and safety training programs.

A. Safety and health mandatory trainings: Training on risk management, emergency and response plan, firefighting, HSE policy, general operational risks, permit to work, etc.

Below training programs should be considered as mandatory.

• HSE Induction
• Training on Firefighting and other emergency procedures.
• First-aid Training
• Accident and incident reporting procedures.
• Training on Personal protective equipment requirements.
• Introduction to the safe systems of work and permit systems.
• Introduction to the risk assessment system.
• Traffic safety and security systems

B. Technical training/ Skills development training:

• Training on operating / maintenance procedures
• Training on method statements,
• Occupational health and hygiene monitoring,
• Plant and machine operation related
• Incident investigation
• Training on HAZOP, etc

ii. Safety communication and awareness

The organization must establish and implement the appropriate means, methods / procedures for effective communication in order to make its staff / workers aware of health and safety.

Safety communication can take many forms and helps the organization develop and improve the positive safety culture. Here are the main modes of safety communication generally used in industries.

a) Oral safety communication

b) Written safety communication

c) Graphical or pictorial safety communication

There are many ways and forums to communicate health and safety information to workers and improve their level of awareness.

i) Safety and health induction must be interlocked with gate pass/ security pass process where general workplace hazards and company rules can be communicated. Awareness on company safety and health policy is mandatory for all staff and workers including visitors.

ii) Conduct daily safety toolbox talk before start of any work.

iii) safety Picture/poster/visual aid is the best way to communicate the desired message as there is no barriers of languages. Safety signage should be displayed at prominent locations to cautions or alert workmen.

iv) Email/ newsletter in local languages, display on notice board, etc

v) Conduct regular meeting to share the HSE information.

vi) Organize training with video aids.

vii) Arranged weekly/monthly motivational programs for rewarding with small token and communicate the desired messages on health and safety.

viii) Carry out routine inspections and advice safe work procedure on spot.

ix) Share incident/ accident case studies.

x) Develop safety handbook and distribute to staff and workers during safety induction, etc

The most important safety information to provide to workers is about the health and safety risks identified in their risk assessments and the essential precautionary and protective measures to control the risks. It must be specific to their work activities. Other important information to make the workmen fully aware on safety and health should be;

Awareness on safe evacuation procedure, company HSE policy and other rules, Operating / maintenance / inspection / HSE procedures and safe work practices, General hazards and risk in the workplace Ex. Information on H2S must be communicated to everyone in the oil and gas industries, the location of welfare facilities, safe movement around the workplace, worker consultation arrangements, general safety rules, welfare facilities, etc.

iii. Participation & Consultation

Employee participation and consultation is a very important aspect of the safety management system for developing a positive safety culture in the organization. It helps motivate workers through empowerment, that is, they will feel ownership of safety and health and thus contributes to improving their safety behavior. They will start participating in the safety initiative and the improvement program. Consulting workers on the decision-making process encourages their interest and ownership of health and safety.

ILO-C155, article 12 and ILO-R164, article 20 provide detailed guidance on worker participation and consultation. It has been observed that in some countries the employer is required to consult their workers on health and safety issues, so this is a legal obligation. In many countries, it is not legal requirements, still they have consult to their workers on below safety issues.

a) Any changes in the existing safety control measures which may affect the safety and health of the workers.

b) Employer must consult the workers while appointing safety practitioner.

c) When employer is developing the safety and health training plans, he must consult the workers.

d) Before introduction of new process or technology that may affect the safety and health of workers in workplace. etc.

Example of safety management system

The basic framework of safety management system is common in all types of industries. Hazardous industries must develop a robust safety management system by identifying all workplace hazard including hazards associated with their routine and nonroutine activities for sustainable business. Identification of all type of hazards i.e hazards associated with plant equipment, process, chemicals, activities, job factor and human factors provide the solid base for risk assessment and to develop the accident prevention programs.   

To know more about type of hazards and safety, you may click here

To framework the robust safety management system, organizations must assess their safety and health requirements based on their associated hazards, type of neighboring industries, neighboring communities and all other stakeholder. Quantitative risk assessment (QRA) and environment impact assessment study (EIA) may be considered as input for developing any safety management system.

Here are some safety management system examples framed by different international agencies.

a) The International Labor Organization (ILO), United nations agency, provides the basic guideline on framework of safety management system in ILO-OSH 2001.

b) OHSAS-18001, Occupation health and safety management system introduced by British and Polish standard (from 1999 to 2018)

c) ISO-45001: occupational safety and health management system framed by international organization for standardization. It is more related to certification purpose.

d) OSHA, The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration also provide the framework and guidelines on safety management system

e) HS(G)65, provide the framework and guidelines on safety management system by British Health and Safety Executive.

All standards are providing the guideline on safety management system, adoption of standards is purely based on the type of industries or business and their location countries.

Safety management system in aviation industry

Federal aviation administration (FAA) provide the detail knowledge and awareness on aviation safety management system. The framework of aviation safety management system is similar to SMS explained in above part of this article.  

As the hazard exposure to number of occupants (peoples/passenger in aircraft) is higher and consequences may be more significant, high level of safety management system with zero tolerance in compliance is required.

The major challenges in aviation safety management system is to manage the sudden changes in weather or extreme weather condition which is out of human control.

Human factor is very important in aviation safety management system to facilitate quick precise decision by pilot and traffic control operator in crisis scenarios.

The aviation industry has evolved over the years and maintaining the highest safety standards. Aviation safety management system helps to follow a continuous process of improvement in air safety.

To ensure continual improvement in aviation safety management system, below major factors must be assured effectively.

i. Incident/accidents investigation and accident causation theory

ii. Positive safety culture

iii) Human factors.

In the early years of aviation in the 1950s there were several numbers of aircraft accident happened frequently and investigating team believed that improvement in technology and focusing on technical reliability would be able to reduce the number of accidents. Thus, in earlier days, peoples were more focused on technical upgradation but after improvements in technology, accidents still continue to happened.

Then in the 1970s, the focus shifted to human factors and quality management, which had a stress on standardization and consistency, but even that it didn’t succeed to prevent the accidents although quality management did reduce the number of accidents.

In 1996 , the aviation industry looked at accident causation through the prism of James reasons theory that accidents are not the result of a single factor but a chain of events.  Then the attention of the airline industry tern to focus on human factor and they understood that people can react to the same situation differently based on their thoughts, experiences and state of mind.

Here the basic concept emerge that the entire aviation organization is responsible for any accident or inversely the entire organization may contribute to stoppage of an accident.

In earlier days, another major factor in accident investigation approaches was they more emphasis for answers to “what happened”, “when did it happen” and “who is to blame”. But presently, investigation team is emphasizing on “how it happened” and “why it happened”. Thus, blame culture finished and more focused on ensuring that it should not happen again and aimed at improvement of aviation safety management system.

After implementation of safety management system, aviation industries able to manage the continual improvement of safety standards and processes has brought number of aircraft crashes down.

Safety management system software

Safety management system software in form of e-tool may be more useful in current situations as it provides the best industrial practices related to your type of industry. These software’s provide different module based practical assistance on safety performance monitoring and its trend and monitoring and measurement of return on safety investment.

Safety management system software may help for measuring, monitoring and communicating the information on

a) Management of change

b) Risk assessment, gas dispersion modeling, etc

 c) Environment impact assessment

d) Crises management and mass communication

e) Incident reporting and investigation

f) Audit management

f) legal compliances

g) Workplace inspection and reporting of unsafe conditions

h) industrial hygiene survey.

i) Health monitoring of workers/ staff and maintaining master data

j) Safety communications and safety alert,

k) Workers stress monitoring and record keeping, etc

Below is the list of safety management software available in market

i) Ensure compliance – Pharmacovigilance audits: it provides the software services for audit management in Pharma industries.

ii) Crises Control software:  This software is for crises communication and helps organizations to notify the emergency call in fastest way.

iii) incy.io:  This software helps organization to manage its incident reporting and investigation system. It also assist for follow-up actions and handle root cause analysis.

iv) Safety Management Software by ASK:  It is a multi-featured software help management to manage all aspect of safety management system requirements by managing real-time EHS records and compliances on fingertips.

v) QUENTIC safety management software: It help management to maintain the documentation and assess the risks, determine safeguards, reduce the potential for accidents and hazards to health. It is suitable for any small, medium or large industries and built according to OHSAS 18001 and new ISO 45001.

vi) EHS management software: It help to manage all aspect of safety management system including risk assessment, incident reporting and investigation.

Safety management system template

Here you can find different safety management templates which we are continuously updating, all these templates are free, you can download and use for your organization

i) Incident investigation checklist

ii) Incident investigation report template

iii) Near-miss report

iv) Portable power tool inspection

v) Job safety analysis format

vi) HSE induction format

Role of Safety specialist in Safety Management System

It is legal requirement in almost all countries that organizations (considering the number of employees/workers) must have access to appropriate competent people to give them health and safety advice. These safety specialists or "safety practitioners" may work within the organization or may be brought in from outside as consultant. They are responsible for giving correct advice to the organization so that the organization can comply its legal obligations and achieve its policy objective & targets.

Their roles and responsibilities are:

• Providing advice and guidance in implementation of SMS & health and safety standards.
• Promoting a positive health and safety culture.
• Advising management on accident prevention, accident reporting and investigations.
• Developing and implementing policy.
• Directing the development of adequate risk assessments.
• Identifying training needs.
• Monitoring health and safety performance.

Other than above, He must guide management to maintain below health and safety records

• PPEs issue register.
• Record of statutory training and skill development.
• Record of workers competency.
• Record of workers health and safety violation and disciplinary actions.
• Record of workers medical fitness and periodic medical check.
• Record of Hazard and risk assessment and communication to workers, etc

Safety Specialist/ practitioners competency

Safety practitioners must be qualified and experienced in health and safety. Below framework of their competency is suggested.

Competency of Safety Specialist

To know more about qualities and attributes of safety practitioner, click here

Safety management system course

Below reputed institutes are organizing, providing and conducting regular as well as correspondence courses on safety management system worldwide.

NEBOSH safety courses

There is huge demand and most recognized NEBOSH courses are a valuable introduction to occupational safety and health management system. They are suitable for any employee, at any level, in any sector.

These courses are of two types ie. certificate courses and diploma courses

Certificate safety courses

1. National General Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety
2. International General Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety
3. National Certificate in Fire Safety and Risk Management
4. International Certificate in Fire Safety and Risk Management
5. National Certificate in Construction Health and Safety
6. International Certificate in Construction Health and Safety
7. NEBOSH HSE Certificate in Process Safety Management
8. NEBOSH HSE Certificate in Health and Safety Leadership Excellence
9. National Certificate in the Management of Health and Well-being at Work
10. International Technical Certificate in Oil and Gas Operational Safety

NEBOSH Diploma safety courses

1. National Diploma in Occupational Health and Safety
2. International Diploma in Occupational Health and Safety
3. National Diploma in Environmental Management

IOSH safety courses

1. Technical Member (Tech IOSH)
2. Graduate Member (Grad IOSH)
3. Chartered Member (CMIOSH)
4. Chartered Fellow (CFIOSH)

Certified Safety Professional (CSP)

Certified safety professional is the highest qualification in the filed of safety management and certificate is offered by board of safety professionals. The accreditation is used in the United States.

Below is the basic qualification requiring becoming a certified safety professional

• A minimum of a bachelor’s degree in any field or an associate in safety
• The associate degree must include at least four courses with at least 12 semesters
• 4 years of safety experience at professional level.

Below qualifications may make you eligible to become CSP

• Chartered Member of the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health
• NEBOSH National or International Diploma in Occupational Health and Safety
• Diploma/Certificate in Industrial Safety, as issued by the State Government Departments/Boards of Technical Education, Government of India
• Fire and Safety Forum Advanced & Post-Graduate and Master Diploma and 

Conclusion:

Safety Management System (SMS) provides the systematic & structural approach to manage workplace health and safety within an organization. Safety management system is a systematic approach to managing the safety, including the necessary organizational structures, accountabilities, policies, and procedures Competent Safety practitioners guiding/ advising management to develop, implement and maintain the safety management system. These are also called as elements of safety management system according to ILO-OSH 2001 and OHSAS-81001 which is applicable to all types of industries and organizations

 The main components of safety management system are Safety policy and safety objectives, Safety Risk Management (SRM), Safety Assurance and Safety Promotion. These are generally called as four pillars of safety management system.

Safety specialist/ practitioner are the main drivers of safety management system and their major role is to support and guide the management for effective development and implementation of system. They must be competent enough to give guidance on legal requirement and help organization to monitor the performance of safety management system.

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