Element 2 Involve Employees

Success can best be achieved through application of a process model that merges proven performance management techniques with sound risk management practices. Experience indicates that the following eight process elements are essential for effectively maintaining workplace conditions and practices necessary to sustain incident-free operations. 

Full employee involvement is essential to leveraging the organization s limited resources, harnessing employee knowledge, and facilitating employee ownership of 

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The first major element is Employee Participation [29 CFR 1910.119 (c)]. This requires that affected employees (those who could be affected by an incident) not only have access to pertinent Process Safety Management information, but also be allowed to provide input to its development and use. It is expected that affected employees will be trained in the standard s content. Many companies not only welcome employees input, but also involve them in the development and management of the individual elements. It is expected that all employee participation in PSM implementation will be documented. ... 

The information needed to control such a process is normally distributed between the people involved (employees and customers) and the documents that define the processes. However, the reasoning outUn above shows that it is useful to combine some elements within a product model. These considerations lead to the product model depicted in Figure 4, which uses an object-oriented notation according to the Unified Modeling Language (UML). 

The intent of this paragraph is to require employers to involve employees at an elemental level of the PSM program. Minimum requirements for an Employee Participation Program for PSM must include a written plan of action for implementing employee consultation on the development of PHAs and other elements of process hazard management contained within 1910.119. The employer must also provide ready access to all the information required to be developed under the standard. ... 

The development, implementation and maintenance of an effective health and safety plan is not easy. It may be useful to develop a comprehensive series of programmes, allot prioribes to the elements within the programmes, and implement these in stages. Success can be achieved if all segments of the workforce carry out their individual responsibihties and work together in a cooperative climate. Motivated and involved employees can be expected to do this. 

For an effective safety culture, one core element is employee involvement in the safety management system. As part of the leadership team, you do not have to solve all of your safety culture issues alone. Your organization already has great built-in resources available that may not be fully utilized as effectively as they should. These resources are your employees If fully engaged, your employees can be your best problem solvers as they are closest to the real and/or potential hazards and associated risks. 

After observations are completed and data is collected and recorded, involved employees should be included in reviewing the data analysis to ensure that all basic job elements have been Hsted in the right sequence (Roughton, 1996). 

Subtle and different elements that may not have directly been observed become apparent. Employees may not be aware of certain movements and actions they make that have become the habitual normal yet harmful behavior. Reviewing the videos and photos in a group setting involving employees and leadership can be especially useful as a training and awareness communication tool. 

Employee Participation Preparation for startup is an excellent opportunity to document employee participation. If a toller is covered under the OSHA PSM regulation, they must record PHA participants, procedure writers and reviewers, PSSR team members and test run team members. All these roles reflect the true intent of this element of process safety. Eveiyone benefits from intimate involvement in the management system used to protect life and health. 

Materials handling applications can be made wherever materials are transported, positioned, or.stored, the most extensive use being in mahufg. Manufg involves elements of motion, time, quantity, and space motion to transport materials between work stations, time to process and handle materials, quantity to establish work schedules and.material flow rates, and space to house materials, machines, and employees. The... 

A comprehensive training program for all employees is another essential element to secure adequate quality and safety standards. The program has to incorporate the entire workforce involved into any aspect of the manufacturing process and needs to be documented. 

Assess the attitude of management, supervision, and other employees regarding their acceptance of, motivation towards, and involvement in all elements of the program. 

Metrics should relate to the elements of the process safety system. Poorly selected metrics that do not specifically relate to the execution of process safety elements will not provide an accurate evaluation of process safety system performance. Occupational injury and illness reporting rates are sometimes used to judge overall safety performance, and this metric does track the incidence of employee injuries quite well. However, this rate does not reflect the effectiveness of the process safety system. Occupational safety is quite important to the health and well-being of employees, but the metrics involved in assessing the occupational safety performance are not appropriate for process safety system evaluation the detailed elements of a process safety program differ markedly fl-om an occupational safety program (as discussed in Chapter 3). 

Participatory ergonomics sees end users contributions as indispensable elements of its scientific methodology. It stresses the validity of simple tools and workers experience in problem solution and denies that these characteristics result in nonscientific outcomes. Employees or end users are in most situations in the best position to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the work situations. Their involvement in the analysis and redesign of their workplace can lead to better designs as well as increase their and the company s knowledge on the process. 

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