2. HEALTH AND SAFETY MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
2.2 THE ORIGINS OF HEALTH AND SAFETY MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
2.2.3 Support for Emphasis on the Individual in Early Industrial Psychology Research
2.2.4 The Influence of Scientific Management on the Origins of Health and Safety Management
2.3 ELEMENTS OF A HEALTH AND SAFETY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
2.4 INTEGRATION OF HEALTH AND SAFETY MANAGEMENT INTO BROADER WORKPLACE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
What is a health and safety management system? What is an integrated health and safety management system? Does the recent upsurge in interest in health and safety management systems represent a new phenomenon or is it a continuation of past practices? These are the questions around which this chapter is structured. Specifically, the chapter has four objectives. First, to outline some aspects of the history of health and safety management, which may assist in illuminating present management approaches. The second objective is to identify what is meant by a health and safety management system, and this will be done by noting the elements of the health and safety management systems identified in key texts and manuals. The third objective is to examine the concept of integration of health and safety management into broader workplace management systems. The final objective is to identify issues and themes to assist the subsequent categorisation of the types of health and safety management systems.
In this chapter and throughout this report, the phrases 'health and safety management system' and 'health and safety program' are used interchangeably, as they are more generally in the health and safety literature. It is not possible here nor is it necessary to examine in depth the vast literature on systems thinking in the field of operations research (see for example Checkland, (1981); Flood and Jackson, (1991); and Emery, (1969). The need here is to identify what is meant by a health and safety management system and identify the parameters of systems that might assist the analysis of the cases.
Aside from the systems approach in operational research, there is a popular concept of 'system' in everyday usage, reflected for example in the definition in the Macquarie Dictionary, where a system is 'an assemblage or combination of things or parts forming a complex or unitary whole'. In the health and safety literature, systems are referred to frequently as composed of humans, machines and the environment, which interact in order to achieve a defined goal (Sanders and McCormick, 1993:14) and have the following characteristics:
The definitions and characteristics can apply equally to a health and safety program as to a health and safety management system, as will be evident in the following section which explores the origins of health and safety management systems.
2.2 THE ORIGINS OF HEALTH AND SAFETY MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
Health and safety management systems emerged as a key prevention strategy in the mid-1980s. The Bhopal disaster is credited as the catalyst for attention to management systems in the process industries (Sweeney, 1992:89), although the concept of a systems approach had been evident since the 1960s (Lees, 1980:71). An estimated 2500 people were killed and ten times as many injured by leaking methyl isocyanate at Bhopal in December 1984. Issues identified as contributing to the disaster were inadequate attention to design of plant and process, maintenance and testing of plant and protective equipment, training and emergency planning, as well as the failure to implement safety audit recommendations and a lack of attention to the broader planning issues associated with the location of hazardous plants in residential areas (Kletz, 1985:198). Following the Bhopal disaster, many enterprises in the high risk process industries extended the focus of health and safety activity beyond the traditional emphasis on process technology and technical safeguards towards management practices, procedures and methods, while attention was directed at industry level to models for system development and performance measurement (Sweeney, 1992).
The mid-1980s also saw the appearance of health and safety management systems beyond the process industries. In Australia, manuals on health and safety management systems were published by consultancy companies, employer organisations and governments (Chisholm 1987, Confederation of Australian Industry, 1988, Department of Labour (Vic), 1988, WorkCover (SA), 1989). However, while the 'systems' terminology in these manuals was new, the system elements were consistent with the health and safety programs of previous years. Just how similar or different the new approach to health and safety was in relation to its antecedents might be tested by tracing the development of health and safety management systems and exploring the influences which have shaped them.
The United States literature places the formative period for health and safety management programs as the 1950s and the 1960s. At this time the concept of health and safety was presented as being as much a part of the discipline of management as of engineering (Smith and Larson, 1991:903, Pope, 1981:62). Indeed, Petersen (1988:4) refers to the 1950s and 1960s as the 'safety management era', characterised by the incorporation of concepts and techniques from a number of other disciplines. Management and personnel techniques included policy setting, definition of responsibilities, and employee selection and placement. Statistical techniques used in the quality control field were introduced. Ergonomics, or human factors engineering, was incorporated also into the role of the health and safety professional, alongside new responsibilities relating to fleet safety, property damage control and off-the-job safety. Occupational hygiene duties had already filtered into the role of the health and safety professional following changes in workers compensation law defining compensable industrial diseases (Petersen, 1988:4).
The developments in health and safety management outlined above are only part of the story. The changes described may have broadened the role of the health and safety professional, but at a deeper level there appears to have been little change in the basic elements of a health and safety program. The genesis of health and safety programs in the workplace is placed earlier in the century as a response to the need for health and safety organisation following the introduction of workers compensation legislation (Grimaldi and Simonds, 1989:16). The three organising principles of the early health and safety programs, engineering, education and enforcement of rules (Colling, 1990:5) provided the framework for a seminal work on safety management by H. W. Heinrich (1959) first published in 1931.
Heinrich had a formative influence on health and safety practice and his safety program elements have endured to the present day as the foundation of management techniques in health and safety. Heinrich's highly influential work Industrial Accident Prevention: A Scientific Approach documented the prevailing approach to health and safety preventative programs, within a philosophical framework which saw individual employees rather than working conditions as the primary cause of accidents in the workplace.
Heinrich's theories and techniques on safety management were supported by research he conducted while employed as an engineer for an insurance company. His major research study concerned the causes of accidents and comprised a subjective assessment of the accident cause in 75,000 accident insurance cases. He concluded that 88 per cent of accidents resulted from 'unsafe acts' and 10 per cent from 'unsafe conditions', making a total of 98 per cent judged to be preventable, with the remaining 2 per cent judged as unpreventable. Heinrich advocated a multi-disciplinary approach to safety, focused upon engineering, psychology, management and 'salesmanship' (Pope, 1981:62). The emphasis on psychology supported his theory that accidents were caused primarily by the 'unsafe acts' of employees. The minimisation of technical fault supported the concept of the culpability of the injured person in accident compensation cases (Hale and Glendon, 1987:31).
The techniques for health and safety management advocated by Heinrich in 1931 are evident today in health and safety programs and systems. Techniques for safety management proposed by Heinrich include close supervision; safety rules; employee education through training, posters and films; hazard identification through analysis of past experience, survey and inspection; accident investigation; job analysis; methods safety analysis; production of accident analysis sheets; approval processes for new construction, installation of new equipment, and changes in work procedures or processes; establishment of safety committees and arrangements for emergency and first aid. Heinrich presented lost time injury frequency rates as the best available measure of effectiveness, complete with the qualification of statistical limitations still common today. Also reminiscent of current approaches is the parallel drawn between the controls in safety and the control of the quality, cost and quantity of production. The causes of accidents and production faults Heinrich viewed as similar and the control methods as equivalent. Safety, he argued, should be managed like any other business function.
Heinrich's theories of accident causation similarly have continued impact. Perhaps the most enduring legacy of Heinrich is the dichotomy between 'unsafe acts' and 'unsafe conditions', or the influence of unsafe behaviour versus hazards/technical deficiencies as the cause of accidents. At the heart of Heinrich's prevention philosophy was the axiom that the unsafe acts of persons are responsible for a majority of accidents. The axiom was central to Heinrich's domino model of accident causation, which depicted five dominoes ready to fall in sequence, portraying five inter-connected factors in an accident sequence. Unsafe acts/conditions were placed in the central position, preceded by inherited or acquired personal faults, and followed by an accident and injury. The removal of the unsafe act/condition was expected to interrupt the sequence. The expected result was prevention of the accident and possible injury. Control of the individual behaviour of employees was the key.
2.2.3 Support for Emphasis on the Individual in Early Industrial Psychology Research
Heinrich's research on the role of the individual in accident causation was supported by a burgeoning literature in the then new field of industrial psychology. High accident rates in manufacturing industry had provided the context for the early research in industrial psychology, which featured competing theories of accident causation, on the one hand the role of environmental factors beyond the control of the individual and on the other, the particular characteristics of injured individuals (Hale and Glendon, 1987:28). This early research found individual differences to be significant, but without seeking to disprove the significance of environmental factors (Hale and Glendon, 1987:28). Subsequently, the study of 'accident proneness' evolved as a central priority in industrial psychology research, a position maintained for some decades until challenged on methodological grounds (Hale and Glendon, 1987:29).
The influence of industrial psychology extended into the workplace in the early decades of this century, through the introduction of aptitude tests to predetermine the suitability of employees for particular jobs by assessing their 'accident proneness', as well as their 'intelligence', 'manual dexterity' and the degree to which they matched the desired 'profile' of management (Weindling, 1985:18; Braverman, 1974:144). With the objective of enhancing efficiency and productivity, these techniques sat comfortably alongside the scientific management techniques introduced by Taylor, Ford and others (Weindling, 1985:18).
2.2.4 The Influence of Scientific Management on the Origins of Health and Safety Management
Although health and safety improvement would seem to fit logically with the efficiency objective of scientific management, Frederick Taylor, the founder of scientific management, showed little concern for issues relating to employee health (Bohle, 1993:93). Nevertheless, the relationship between scientific management and health and safety is relevant to the origins of modern health and safety management systems. There are two aspects to the relationship. First, practitioners of scientific management did identify health and safety as a relevant issue, albeit in a limited way. Ford, for example, spoke of the social benefits of healthy and safe working conditions as having a positive impact on productivity:
One point that is absolutely essential to high capacity as well as to humane production, is a clean, well-lighted and well-ventilated factory (quoted in Willson, 1985:251) |
The second aspect of the relationship is the impact of scientific management on health and safety outcomes and the development of health and safety programs. Willson (1985:242) details four new hazard areas created through the operation of scientific management, work simplification which resulted in repetitive and often boring work; the hazards relating to new technology; the new work processes and the pace of their introduction which posed unknown hazards; and the hazards associated with techniques such a piecework and a faster production rate, particularly where they were introduced selectively without complete factory reorganisation. Jones (1985:223) notes that one response in the inter-war years in Britain was considerable research on changes to the labour process by industrial psychology and occupational health research institutes, stimulated by the spread of scientific management techniques and an increase in employer interest in health and safety as an aspect of labour management. Quinlan and Bohle (1991:51) link the origins of industrial psychology to the objective to moderate the negative impact of Taylorist techniques on work and the workforce.
There are few examples in the literature of early health and safety programs in the workplace. An exception is Willson's (1985) case study of the company Magneti Marelli in the inter-war period in Italy. The case is an interesting one in light of the previous discussion, for it explores the links between health and safety, scientific management, and industrial psychology, the nature of the health and safety program and the competing approaches to accident prevention. Magneti Marelli was a manufacturer of electrical parts and radios for various forms of transport vehicles. Founded in 1919, the company had begun to introduce scientific management techniques by 1924. A health and safety program was introduced in 1927, to operate through a safety committee, the first such committee to be established in Italy and an innovation in health and safety management imported from the United States. Company records reveal management perceptions of strong links between health and safety and productivity and health and safety and scientific management, including the potential for the health and safety program to alleviate the negative effects of Taylorism. One of the directors wrote:
The faster work tempo imposed by modern rationally organised production only worsens the [health and safety] situation, since the nervous tension and increased physical effort required undermines the worker's resistance unless we also introduce appropriate preventative measures (Willson, 1985:252) |
The safety committee at Magneti Marelli addressed the hazards arising out of the application of scientific management, usually in response to an accident investigation. Proposed control measures included changes to particular aspects of the work process and modification of machinery and the environment, as well as personal protective equipment. In addition, the committee established health and safety record-keeping procedures to collect diagnostic information for preventative purposes and provided information on health and safety to the workforce. Health and safety was viewed by the safety committee as covering technical, organisational, environmental and human factor issues.
At Magneti Marelli, environment and human factor issues were also the province of another management innovation imported from the United States, the Industrial Psychology Department. This department had the charter to apply 'scientific' techniques to personnel management. At the heart of its activities was a testing program based in part on a study of potential long term health hazards which was used for 'rational' employee selection and placement. Measurement of qualities such as quickness, tiredness and physical strength were aimed at recruitment or retention of fast and efficient employees who were judged as less likely to have accidents. Willson (1985:248) notes the contradictions in the approach of the Industrial Psychology Department with its emphasis on fitting the employee to the job and that of the safety committee with its emphasis on control of hazards at source. While the long term impact of the programs cannot be evaluated, in the first two years for which records were kept the company achieved significant reductions in both the accident rate and accompanying cost rate. The company policy on health and safety expenditure is instructive; it reflected the influence of scientific management in viewing health and safety as a self-financing measure rather than as a cost. The positive financial impact on productivity of a reduction in injury and ill health was recognised and was matched by a reluctance to spend more on health and safety improvements than was gained through a reduction in accidents.
Health and safety programs historically have been voluntarist in nature (Jones, 1985:223), a fact which needs to be viewed in the light of developments in health and safety legislation and enforcement.
From the outset, health and safety legislation was focused upon working conditions and the engineering out of machinery hazards, the major cause of injury in nineteenth century factories. The first Australian factory laws, introduced in Victoria in 1885, regulated the working hours of children and women in factories, the fencing of machinery and restrictions on cleaning of moving machines, made provision for adequate airspace, ventilation and cleanliness, and introduced a factory inspectorate to administer the legislation (Gunningham, 1984:68). This basic legislative framework persisted in Victoria and nationally until the introduction of Robens-style legislation in the past two decades (see Chapter One for a brief description of Robens-style legislation). While health and safety programs were not prescribed by legislation, they nevertheless were promoted by government through the factory inspectorate. The shift early in the history of the factory inspectorate in Britain, and emulated in Australia, away from an enforcement role towards a persuasive/educative role (Gunningham, 1984:56-62,267) underlined the promotion of broad-based health and safety programs in addition to a strong focus on working conditions and engineering measures to the control machinery hazards (Jones, 1985:229; Prior, 1985: 55-56).
At the same time, the inspectorate was influenced by Heinrich's theories on the 'unsafe acts' of employees, which appears to have constrained attention to engineering out of hazards and is likely to have influenced their promotion of health and safety programs. Hale and Glendon (1987:31) note the acceptance by the inspectorate of the primacy of unsafe acts in injury causation. In their view, the inspectorate's emphasis on the role of employees in causing accidents supported a position whereby only a small minority of incidents could be prevented through engineering means (Hale and Glendon, 1987:31). Jones (1985:235) suggests that in doing so, the inspectorate reflected rather than challenged the dominant ideology that saw accident causation as centred on individual behaviour and accident control as deriving from individual. It would appear the legislation (the theory) focused on hazards/'unsafe conditions'; while the inspectorate (the practice) focused on the importance of 'unsafe acts'.
Over time the proponents of the behavioural and legislated-engineering approaches have adopted a dismissive and sometimes hostile stance towards each other. Criticisms of the behavioural approach emphasise employees' limited control and capacity to influence factors underlying injury and ill-health (Bohle, 1993:109). Mathews (1985:8) argues 'the very fact of intervention by the law to set a minimum standard of safety is a recognition of the point that safety lies in the system of work rather than in the behaviour of any worker'. On the other hand, Denton (1982:6), in seeking to establish the difficulty in changing employee behaviour, dismisses the tasks of hazard identification and control as relatively easy. It might be noted that Heinrich did not ignore control at source as a control solution. He placed the safeguarding of mechanical equipment as the first remedial method and saw it as "the very first common sense step" (1959:22). But his conception of the limited role of the 'unsafe condition' in accident causation relative to the 'unsafe act' made it a lower priority with an incidental status:
Incidentally, guarding and other action of an 'engineering revision' nature often provide an immediate remedy even for accidents caused chiefly by man failure (1959:34). |
Petersen (1988:6), another proponent of the behavioural approach, views the traditional legislative emphasis on physical hazards and technical controls as curtailing the opportunities to develop the behaviourist perspective in the United States. He believes the stage was set for the introduction of a 'psychology of safety management era', which would extend Heinrich's principles into new methods for influencing the behaviour of people, but the initiative was delayed by the introduction of the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1970, which he terms the 'OSHA era'. Petersen comments disparagingly on the resulting emphasis on legislated management responsibility to control physical working conditions, and the new focus on compliance with legislation and documentation for government inspection. He deplores the withdrawal of emphasis on people control.
In this section the dominant role played by Heinrich in shaping health and safety management has been highlighted. Petersen and Roos, in their revision of the Heinrich's Industrial Accident Prevention (Heinrich, Petersen and Roos 1980:viii), state the book 'was and still is the basis for almost everything that has been done in industrial safety programming from the date it was written until today'. The safety management techniques advocated by Heinrich continue to underline current health and safety programs and systems. Heinrich's dichotomy of 'unsafe acts' and 'unsafe conditions' has persisted in health and safety textbooks (for example Denton, 1982:36; Anton, 1979:13; Petersen, 1988:15; DeReamer, 1980:63; Colvin, 1992:13; Grimaldi and Simonds, 1989:20) as has the concept of a ratio between them. Anton (1979:265), for example, states that almost 90 per cent of all work-related accidents are due to negligence on the part of the injured employee. An influential proprietorial health and safety program states that over 90 per cent of on-the-job injuries are caused by the unsafe acts of people (Du Pont 1988). DeReamer (1980:64) finds the concept satisfactory but suggests the figure is more like 50:50.
2.3 ELEMENTS OF A HEALTH AND SAFETY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
What does a health and safety management system look like? Table 2.1 shows the basic elements of health and safety systems or programs in guidance documents and key safety management texts.
There is considerable accord across these North American, British and Australian sources concerning the major system elements. A health and safety management system will be planned, and have a general policy statement focused upon relevant objectives, roles and responsibilities.
The visible involvement and commitment of senior management is regarded as a critical element of all system proposals, accompanied by a key role to clearly assign responsibilities and monitor performance at the various management levels. Each of the guidance documents and texts places some emphasis on employee consultative arrangements, through the work of health and safety representatives or joint health and safety committees, or through more direct employee involvement mechanisms. Common specific program elements include the identification and monitoring of hazards through workplace inspections; the reporting and investigation of incidents; and the collection and analysis of data to assist the prevention effort. Health and safety policies and procedures will be formulated and a health and safety training program will be targetted to managers, supervisors and other employees. Consideration of health and safety will be planned into design and purchasing arrangements. Further, first aid arrangements will be organised, as will the provision of medical facilities and health monitoring appropriate to the health risks at the workplace. Finally, health and safety management system monitoring and evaluation mechanisms will be in place.
The more recent sources, such as the Victorian Government's SafetyMAP program and the UK Health and Safety Executive guide, also emphasise the integration of health and safety management into broader workplace management systems. The concept of integration will be explored further in the next section.
Table 2.1 : Health and Safety Management Systems : Key Basic Elements in Government Guides
and Selected Reference Texts
| \ | Government Guides - Vic & SA |
Government Guides - UK, US & Canada | Selected Texts | ||||||
PROGRAM ELEMENT |
Safety Map OHSA (1994) | Dept. of Labour Vic (1988) | WorkCover SA (1989) | OSHA 1989 (Stanevich 1989) | Health & Safety Executive (1991) | Canadian Centre - (1986) | Denton (1982) | Grimaldi & Simonds, (1989) | Dawson (1988) |
ORGANISATION, RESPONSIBILITY, ACCOUNTABILITY |
- | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| Senior manager/involvement | û | û | û | û | û | û | - | û | û |
| Line Manager/supervisor duties | û | û | û | û | û | û | - | û | û |
| Specialist personnel | û | û | û | - | û | û | û | û | û |
| Management accountability and performance measurement | û | û | û | û | û | - | - | û | û |
| Company OHS policy | û | û | û | û | û | û | û | û | û |
| CONSULTATIVE ARRANGEMENTS | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| Health & safety representatives - a system resource | û | û | û | - | û | - | - | - | û |
| Issue resolution - HSR and employer representatives | û | û | û | - | - | - | - | - | û |
| Joint OHS committees | û | û | û | - | û | û | - | - | û |
| Broad employee participation | û | - | - | û | û | - | û | û | û |
| SPECIFIC PROGRAM ELEMENTS & PRINCIPLES | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| Health and safety rules and procedures | û | û | û | û | û | û | - | û | û |
| Training program | û | û | û | û | - | û | û | û | û |
| Workplace inspections | û | û | û | û | û | û | û | û | û |
| Incident reporting & investigation | û | û | û | û | û | û | û | û | - |
| Statement of principles for hazard prevention and control | û | û | û | û | û | - | - | û | û |
| Data collection and analysis/record keeping | û | û | û | û | û | - | û | û | û |
| OHS promotion and information provision | - | û | - | - | û | û | û | û | - |
| Purchasing and design | û | û | û | - | û | - | - | û | - |
| Emergency procedures | û | û | - | û | û | û | û | û | - |
| Medical and first aid | û | û | û | û | û | û | - | û | - |
| Dealing with specific hazards and work organisation issues | û | - | - | - | û | - | - | û | - |
| Monitoring and evaluation | û | û | û | û | û | û | û | û | û |
2.4 INTEGRATION OF HEALTH AND SAFETY MANAGEMENT
INTO BROADER WORKPLACE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
The pursuit of 'integrated health and safety management systems' has become something of a catch phrase in recent years. Integration activity is proposed as critical to the mainstreaming of health and safety as part of normal business practice. The meaning of an integrated health and safety management system and the various strategies and techniques used to integrate health and safety will be examined in this section.
There has been little analysis of the concept of integration in the health and safety literature, but there are diverse definitions and interpretations, which emphasise health and safety as a central aspect of management, on a par with other organisational functions, or of critical importance. Quinlan and Bohle (1991:400) point to the need for health and safety management to be a central, rather than 'add-on', organisational objective, and an integral part of the management and production process. Phillis (1990) has taken a similar position with respect to the integration of health and safety into strategic planning and into everyone's 'normal work'. He suggests that the development of separate safety programs, standing on a pedestal and managed differently to the rest of the organisation, had been fostered by health and safety professionals to the detriment of health and safety objectives. Rahimi (1995:85), similarly, has focused on the integration of health and safety into the organisation's overall mission and objectives, and has stressed the need for a closer integration between 'top down' and 'bottom up' management styles. Resta (1994:13) emphasises parity, contending health and safety must be managed with the same sound management principles and techniques as other aspects of an organisation's management system. For Barnes (1993:532), the 'proven safety and health principles and practices' are not at issue so much as the need for their full integration 'into the management functions of planning, organising, leading and controlling as a routine practice'.
Some authors emphasise the integration of health and safety into broader organisational structures and functions. Reichle (1992:12) examines the interdependence of health and safety and other human resources issues such as employee turnover and stress, while Bridge (1979:260) identifies the interactions between occupational hygiene and the range of production, engineering, legal, environmental, human resources and other functions, and depicts these interactions at the stages of hazard identification, risk assessment and control. Within the discipline of ergonomics, a 'Total Ergonomic Quality' program has been advanced to integrate ergonomic quality within design, production and marketing (Gross, 1991). From a human resource management perspective, the Health and Safety Executive (1991:6) calls for health and safety policies to be aligned with other human resource policies aimed at securing the commitment, involvement and well-being of employees. A common element across the various perspectives is the key concept of the integration of health and safety into senior management, line management and supervisor responsibilities (Dawson et al, 1988:161; Petersen, 1988:67).
Underlying the diverse definitional statements, there is broad agreement in the literature that integration is an essential objective. The identified benefits include the opportunity to compete on an equal footing for organisational resources (Phillis, 1990), the potential for health and safety to be a full-time responsibility for personnel across the organisation rather than a time-permitting activity (Gregory, 1991:29) and the potential for health and safety objectives to be accorded equal importance with other business aims (Health and Safety Executive, 1991:18). Broader organisational benefits are identified also, such as the potential for health and safety to enhance broader change management strategies and its potential as a springboard for organisational change (HSE, 1991; Blewett, 1994).
The call for integrated health and safety management is not new. In 1931, Heinrich (1959:14) argued that safety should be managed like any other business function, and drew parallels between the control of safety and control of the quality, cost and quantity of production. Safety, efficiency and productivity he portrayed as interlinked. Heinrich mapped out a role for senior management, albeit with a focus more on the enforcement of safety rules than on oversighting an integrated health and safety system. However, the senior management role was more symbolic than real, as the status of 'key man' (1959:47), was given to the supervisor, the position judged most able to influence employee behaviour. At the same time, Heinrich's domino theory and accident prevention methods accorded the health and safety professional a key position, which in practice may have worked against an integrated approach. Indeed, it has been suggested the long term failure of organisations to effectively integrate health and safety into their broader systems had much to do with Heinrich's domino theory and its focus on safety as a technician's job far removed from consideration in management strategy (Weaver, 1980:35; Adams, 1976:28).
The issue of integration was re-introduced in the early 1960s by Pope and Creswell (cited in Pope, 1981:63) who sought to refine Heinrich's theories, by de-emphasising the role of supervisor as 'key man' and emphasising appropriate action throughout the management hierarchy, with a systems evaluation role for the health and safety professional. Petersen also has long argued in favour of an integrated approach, as reflected in his comment that "we do not want production and a safety program, or production and safety, or production with safety - but rather, we want safe production" (Petersen, 1978:27).
A further reference to an integrated approach in the 1970s concerns the 'integrated safety concept' elaborated in the French experience with employee participation, associated with sociotechnical systems (Walker, 1979:17). As described by Walker, the goal of prevention of work-related injury and disease was viewed as dependent upon health and safety being an integral part of production and a feature of daily operations, and upon the involvement of employees at all levels in improving health and safety conditions through team-based work organisation.
More recently the renewed emphasis on Quality Assurance and on Total Quality Management has refocused attention on integration. There appear to be two forces at work here. Historically health and safety practitioners have drawn upon and incorporated developments in management theory and practice. In this particular instance, the exercise of exploring the links between health and safety and Total Quality Management in itself draws attention to the concept of integration, given its importance as an organising principle within Total Quality Management and human resources management (Gardner and Palmer, 1992:206; Wilkinson et al, 1992:2).
An examination of the techniques and practices advanced for the integration of health and safety into broader management systems not only supports the claim that integration may be achieved in many ways (Blewett, 1994:2), but also points to considerable diversity in the practice of integration. Five approaches to integration are identified. First, there are the accounts which focus on specific opportunities for the integration of health and safety into aspects of business operation. These opportunities include Phillis' (1990) proposal that the starting point is integration of health and safety into an organisation's business plan, and may also include the incorporation of health and safety into position descriptions, operational procedures, production meetings, periodic production and quality reports, and so on (Gregory, 1991:29; Crutchfield, 1981:227). A Worksafe guide to health and safety management (1995:10) identifies almost fifty integration opportunities. A second approach also locates health and safety as an integral organisational objective, but proposes discrete health and safety objectives and strategy plans developed through health and safety committees that are appropriately resourced and located at the heart of organisational decision-making (Quinlan and Bohle, 1991:415). A third approach is centred upon more innovative integration opportunities such as the holistic approach to the integration of health and safety into quality management systems and recent innovative or best practice management techniques (Clapp and Phillis, 1988; Rahimi 1995; Blewett and Shaw, 1995a, 1995b). The fourth approach is consistent with a traditional safety engineering approach and focuses on the integration of health and safety into the design of equipment and productive processes, and its inclusion in contractual agreements and quality assurance initiatives (Grimaldi and Simonds, 1989:20; Lowery et al, 1988:13; Wood, 1981:248). Finally a behavioural approach can be identified, where integration is focused on infusing health and safety into the corporate culture in order to raise employees' awareness of the risks they face and their responsibility to behave safely (Minter, 1991:20).
The study of issues relating to health and safety integration remains at an early stage, as reflected in the diversity of approaches in the literature and limited empirical research. The literature highlights the diversity in definition of health and safety integration; however, two key aspects of integration have emerged. First, there is the issue of the appropriate fit with business strategy and second, the incorporation of health and safety into the functions and activities of personnel at all levels in the organisation. Beyond that, the strategies, forms and practices diverge. Moreover, there is little discussion in the literature and limited research evidence regarding any disadvantages or contradictions of integration, other than the isolated references to the potential negative impact on employee health and safety of modern management systems such as lean production (Klein), and conclusions on the effectiveness of particular integration strategies such as enterprise bargaining (Blewett and Shaw, 1995b:144; Heiler, 1996). While the 'safety first' concept is criticised as inviting choices to be made between profits and safety, which safety cannot win (Pope, 1981:63; Petersen, 1988:124), there is a curious absence of discussion of any such trade-off or contradiction in circumstances where health and safety is integrated within organisation planning and production. The experience in other disciplines may prove instructive here. A central contradiction identified in the broader human resource management literature (Gardner and Palmer, 1992:469; Legge, 1989:29), where parallel integration strategies are advocated, concerns the potential for conflict and choice between business strategy and policies aimed at employee commitment and involvement. Moreover, the human resources function within which health and safety may be located, itself may be a downstream activity that is not integrated adequately into broader business operations (Frick, 1996:11).
The discussion above has pointed to diverse approaches to integration, and to different approaches to health and safety management and employee involvement. The level of diversity suggests there are issues here that may assist the development of a health and safety management system typology. In particular, Total Quality Management is worthy of detailed consideration as it is a key integration strategy in contemporary health and safety management systems. In addition, the review of health and safety and Total Quality Management links provides an opportunity to further differentiate and explore the different approaches to health and safety management and employee involvement.
Total Quality Management has been described as 'a customer-focused, strategic and systematic approach to continuous performance improvement' (Vincoli, 1991:28). It is an all-embracing management philosophy concerned with changing the corporate culture. The parallels between health and safety and quality management have featured strongly in the health and safety literature in recent years. The literature has focused on the synergies between the two (for example Watkins, 1993:32) and on the direct application of the quality principles and/or techniques to the field of health and safety (Fisher, 1991; Smith, 1993; Clapp and Phillis, 1988; Salazar, 1989; Vincoli, 1991; Motzko, 1989). Drawing on the works of the major quality management theorists, particularly Deming and Crosby, they point to convergence or the need for convergence between quality and health and safety in relation to:
Deming's 'fourteen points' on quality management are outlined in the box below.
It might be noted that occasionally the link between quality and health and safety appears to be little more than the use of the new terminology to introduce a very basic programmed approach to health and safety. Pardy (1991), for example, draws upon Deming's proposed elimination of posters and slogans as a starting point, a point not at the top of Deming's principles, although perhaps still widespread within industry. The approach of Ray et al (1993:114) locates both safety management and quality management as merely employee motivational programs. Deming's proposal to 'drive out fear' has been refined in other behavioural models into the concept of not placing blame on employees for accidents, with systems development centred on the control of upstream safety-related behaviours in a model where behaviour remains the root cause of accidents (Krause and Finley, 1993), a concept to be examined further in the next chapter.
The interpretations of Deming's points invites a closer definition of Total Quality Management.
Demings 14 Points
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Source: Salazar (1989)
However, as with the broader concept of integration, it is difficult to pin down an accepted and accurate description of Total Quality Management (Wilkinson et al, 1992:2). These authors note the British Quality Association has presented three alternative definitions. The first encompasses the 'soft' qualitative characteristics, the emphasis on the customer, culture of excellence, removal of performance barriers, teamwork, training, employee participation and competitive edge. The 'hard' characteristics are emphasised in the second definition, or the tools and systems required to systematically measure and control work, set standards of performance and use statistical procedures to assess quality. The third definition is the 'mixed' approach, featuring an obsession with quality, the need for a scientific approach and the view that all employees are part of the team.
According to Wilkinson and associates, most British proponents of Total Quality Management adopt the 'hard' or 'mixed' approach (1992:3), a trend evident also in the literature cited linking quality and health and safety.
They conclude the emphasis on the 'hard' statistical and operational aspects of quality 'may lead to a lack of attention to the underlying values and consequent behaviour of employees resulting in a failure to achieve the necessary culture change' (1992:18).
The 'soft' characteristics feature in Rahimi's (1995) prescription for 'strategic safety management', a framework for integrating safety, health and environmental issues into long-range planning, and for developing a continuous improvement culture built upon the principles of empowerment, leadership and self-managed work teams, 'a journey to deeply ingrained participative safety management' (1995:91). Rahimi advocates the top-down infusion of safety management principles and the bottom-up infusion of safety engineering principles into policy, planning and work organisation. The approach can accommodate both the more innovative and the more traditional safety and management techniques. The functions of self-managed teams are listed as safety, health, environment, quality, ergonomics, industrial hygiene, production planning and material selection. Following Tyler (1992), four levels of involvement are identified for the teams, the employee leadership teams which steer program development and evaluation, problem solving teams, education teams and finally, audit teams, incorporating the upstream unsafe act auditing advocated by Krause and Finley (1993:20).
In contrast to the health and safety literature on integration, there has been discussion of problems and contradictions relating to quality in the quality management literature, which may be applicable to the health and safety field. A key finding in a study by Wilkinson et al (1992:14) of company case studies in quality management was a lack of sustainability through time, which the authors found to be associated with four sets of problems. First, in practice and in contrast to the theory, Total Quality Management appeared to be 'bolted-on' rather than integrated into key management policies. Second, they identified problems concerning middle managers, including the potential for quality management to become the focus of conflict between competing interest groups rather than a source of unity at management level, and the constraints on the degree of 'intrapreneurship' possible in highly centralised environments. Third, the authors noted the industrial relations implications are considered rarely by employers prior to the introduction of Total Quality Management. Fourth, they commented on the potential for contradictions between Total Quality Management and employee involvement. One contradiction is the promise of employee involvement in theory and limited involvement in practice that was confined to the production process. Another contradiction may arise between increased employee involvement and moves to reinforce management control. The authors note the shift in Total Quality Management away from scientific management which reduces the need for formal rules, and a greater emphasis on monitoring and control. They also note instances where Total Quality Management has resulted in more rules, often superimposed on those already in existence, which has reinforced a management style rooted in scientific management. Some employees may see themselves merely as being asked to take on further responsibility, with Total Quality Management simply used as a motivational device. On the other hand there is the potential for Total Quality Management to empower employees to improve systems from the bottom up, provided managers are willing to relinquish power.
Explicit consideration of health and safety in the quality literature is uncommon. An exception is Wickens (1993) who includes employee involvement in health and safety as part of the resolution to what he terms 'the paradox of production', or the need to achieve both the commitment of the workforce and control of the production process, given alienation of the workforce associated with scientific management techniques. The resolution he proposes is giving ownership to the person doing the job, to improve it in terms of productivity, safety and ease of working, through continuous improvement. Wickens maintains the objective of change must move beyond efficiency, quality and short term results to include safety, in order to ensure control of the process rather than control by the process. Wickens (1993:88) also singles out as the greatest area of neglect the long-term failure to apply ergonomic principles to the design of the product.
In general, quality management is more likely to feature in the health and safety literature than health and safety is likely to feature in the quality and broader management literature. Other instances of health and safety being considered have been identified in the quality literature. Linkow (1989:68) reviewed the implementation of total quality in twenty companies and included safety as one of seven suggested core quality values. A study by Smith and Larson (1991) found strong positive links between health and safety and quality in a small manufacturing firm. The links favoured quality, with one third of the manager and employee survey respondents indicating the quality program does not positively serve the safety program. In a further study by Buchanan and Preston (1992:56), health and safety was accorded marginal importance. This was a case study of team-based work organisation in a 'manufacturing systems engineering' environment, where health and safety was not included in the lengthy list of functions of supervision and team members. Despite the subsequent finding in questionnaire results that health and safety was a source of dissatisfaction among team members, the issue was not identified by the authors as one worthy of particular consideration. The neglect of health and safety in the quality literature is a subset of a deficiency in the wider management literature. Lamm (1994) found health and safety management references to be neglected in the management texts. Sass (1986:569) describes this omission as a 'blindspot' in the broader management literature.
This chapter has explored the meaning of the concept of a health and safety management system. A health and safety management system has been depicted as a combination of the planning and review, management organisational arrangements, the consultative arrangements and the specific program elements that work together to improve health and safety performance. The historical overview of health and safety management systems suggests the recent focus on health and safety management systems is not a new phenomenon but a renewed focus on the need for a managed approach to health and safety evident through much of this century. This is expressed most vividly in the persistence of the techniques advocated by Heinrich in the early 1930s. Many of Heinrich's techniques remain evident in the organisational arrangements and specific program elements in current health and safety management systems.
The key influence of Heinrich identified in this chapter was the introduction of the dichotomy between unsafe acts and unsafe conditions and his assessment that the great majority of injuries were a direct result of unsafe acts by employees. This focus on the individual as the primary cause of workplace incidents may be contrasted with the emphasis in legislation on removing the hazard at source. The differences between the emphasis on individual behaviour in incident causation, commonly known as the 'safe person' approach and the emphasis on hazard control, known as the 'safe place' approach has surfaced repeatedly in literature on the origins of health and safety management and the integration of health and safety into broader enterprise management. The safe person and safe place dichotomy has emerged as a priority theme of this study.
This chapter also posed the question 'what is an integrated health and safety management system' in the context of widespread promotion of integrated systems in recent years. The literature on this issue identified considerable diversity in strategies, forms and practices. Two observations are appropriate. First, the relatively recent advocacy of the concept of integrated systems may explain the diversity. Second, given the voluntaristic nature of health and safety management systems, diversity may find its reflection in the range of approaches adopted by individual enterprises to meet their perceived needs. At the same time, it is possible to discern what might be termed 'higher' levels of integration, for example where health and safety integration gains a position at the heart of business strategy, to 'lower' forms of integration which focus upon specific operational integration objectives. One manifestation of the former approach is the innovative integration of health and safety into quality management. The difference between innovative and more traditional health and safety management systems is a theme which may assist the categorisation of system types. These themes will be taken up in Chapter Three which aims to identify types of health and safety management systems.
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