2024 – Module 10: Safety and Health Management Assurance

Expectations

10.1 Periodically assess conformance with the organization’s Safety & Health Management System requirements, including compliance with applicable legal (e.g., federal, state, and local legislative and/or regulatory) requirements.

10.2 Safety and health performance must be measured, and information must be shared with the workforce. The use of both leading and lagging indicators should be used to provide a more complete picture of strengths and opportunities.

10.3 Internal audits must be conducted using competent personnel to ensure continuous improvement. To maintain CORESafety certification, audits must be conducted by an NMA-approved auditor at least every three years.

10.4 Gaps in conformance with SHMS requirements identified during all audits must be understood and documented, and a plan must be put into place to address gaps promptly.

10.5 A variance process must exist when a standard cannot be conformed to. This process must be reviewed and approved by senior management. Variances are documented with adequate justification details.

These videos are from the 2021 handbook modules and are applicable to the new modules.

Safety and Health Management Assurance Overview

Operations should fully comply with statutory and regulatory requirements to ensure value-added regulations are leveraged. This can be best accomplished by integrating an improvement cycle with the company’s safety and health management system and applying the Plan-Do-Check-Act process to each regulation. Each requirement should have someone responsible for ensuring the requirements are met and working as designed continuously. This feedback is essential for compliance.

Periodically assess the implementation of and conformance to the expectations of the SHMS to ensure an adequate structure exists to analyze the fitness and effectiveness of the modules, expectations, and site-specific practices. Senior management should oversee this process and may involve internal and external audits and assessments. Where nonconformance is identified, corrective action should be taken to ensure continual improvement in both SHMS effectiveness and subsequent safety and health performance.

Resources

10.1

• Keeping Up With OSHA Regulations: How to Ensure You’re Up to Date (businesspowertools.com)

10.2

• Improving Public Safety Performance Evaluations – Lexipol
• http://tkolb.net/FireReports/2020/Lexipol_White_Paper___Performance_Evaluations_in_Public_Safety__1_.pdf

10.3

• Internal Audit vs. External Audit: Understanding the Difference (blackline.com)

10.4

• Are there holes in your SHMS? | Impress Solutions

10.5

• Variance Program – Overview | Occupational Safety and Health Administration (osha.gov)