How to Measure the Effectiveness of SHEQ Controls 

Introduction – The Effectiveness of SHEQ Controls 

Keeping track of the Hierarchy of Controls and their effectiveness is never a static target, as controls and their effectiveness never remain the same over time. Leading, lagging, qualitative and quantitative data all need to be considered. 

• Information is obtained:
  • Internally – Operators, Safety Reps, Engineers, Process Owners, Compliance Team
  • Externally – Professional Bodies, Regulators, Parent Companies, Benchmarking Companies

When to review the effectiveness of SHEQ Controls:

• • When new information of controls becomes available – technology and regulator updates
  • After performance monitoring and measuring, inspections, audits, DSTI’s and surveys revealing opportunities to improve
  • Changes in Legislation
  • Changes to products and recipes
  • Changes to Hazardous Chemical Agents
  • During scheduled reviews of your risk assessment processes
  • During changes within the organization, its activities, processes etc – should be built into the MOC process
  • After Occupational Hygiene assessments where controls are required or identified as deficient
  • After unwanted events, investigations and root cause analysis revealing control failure and why
  • After Emergencies (as a different type of unwanted event)
  • After Mock Emergency Drills revealing control issue

The effectiveness of SHEQ Controls – Leading Indicators: (Before an unwanted event within your Organization)

Requires investigation to confirm applicability, cost-benefit, effectiveness

• • Changes in technology as safety engineering evolves and controls improve
  • Changes in legislation as the regulator changes stipulated controls – generally based on advances in technology or information on accident statistics
  • Information provided from other organizations and professional bodies on incidents, accidents, controls relative to your processes and controls
  • Periodic – External Audits
  • Scheduled – Results of Inspections and audits which indicate how effectively controls are being applied
  • Ongoing Monitoring – DSTI’s , Pre Task Risk Assessments
  • Employee perception surveys

The effectiveness of SHEQ Controls – Lagging Indicators: (After an unwanted event within your Organization)

Requires investigation to determine which of the controls failed and why. It could also be related to the management system effectiveness

• • Reported near misses
  • Reported First Aid Cases
  • Reported Medical Treatments
  • Reported Fatalities
  • Reported Health Incidents
  • Reported complaints and non-conformances

How to review and update the effectiveness of SHEQ Controls:

• • As the review and update of SHEQ controls is a consultative and participative process this process can be done in many of the existing business meetings, such as:
    • Safety Committee Meetings
    • Change Committee
    • Management Review Meetings
    • Process Meetings
  • Who could be involved:
    • Operators
    • Safety Representatives
    • Supervisors and Managers
    • Engineers
    • Finance
    • Procurement
  • Determine and obtain the available evidence
  • Review the leading and lagging information
  • Consider available technology, best practice information, control cost (including maintenance)
  • Review the applicability, appropriateness and potential effectiveness of the suggested controls in terms of its position within the hierarchy of controls
  • Consider cost-benefit analysis
  • Consider wearability and work environment if related to PPE
  • Consider trials of the control where it has applicability to multiple processes and control
  • Consider effective change management protocol
  • Implement, monitor, measure and review the effectiveness of the new control
    • Provide training
    • Create awareness

Summary

Risk assessment is really a passion of mine as in many cases effective identification of risks and opportunities helps businesses to unlock value. Evaluation of the effectiveness of SHEQ controls is a requirement of many of the ISO management system standards and should be part of any effective management system. However, my experience as an auditor has indicated that many organizations don’t know how to evaluate and improve SHEQ control effectiveness. I hope that the brief discussion above has provided some food for thought?

SRM is ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 certified and we use Mango software to drive our risk management program. Mango provides us with the analytical data to be able to assess the effectiveness of SHEQ control. Check our Mango at https://my.mangolive.com

Associated Blogs:

ISO 9001 Performance Evaluation – What you don’t Measure you won’t Manage