Tension within management philosophy
A management philosophy addresses, among other things, the question of who—or which level within the organization—takes responsibility for a given process. The integrated management model advocates delegating responsibility through the line to the lowest possible level in the organization. This implies a safety policy that is, as much as possible, aligned bottom-up with employee behavior.
At the same time, society increasingly holds executives personally accountable—particularly for the effects of policy on the surrounding environment. Safety and the environment are critical elements of the license to operate and therefore require attention and responsibility at the top of the organization. As a result, management must organize certain elements of the safety policy top-down.
No blueprint
There is no blueprint for how liability and responsibility should relate to one another. Each management team must determine where each element of the safety policy is positioned. The higher in the organization responsibility is placed, the more uniform that part of the policy will be. The lower in the organization responsibility is placed, the more customization is possible, allowing the policy to better align with actual work processes.
Determining the right balance between uniformity and diversity is a topic worthy of a dedicated management conference.
Headquarters guidelines
There are global differences in how management philosophy is implemented. Multinational companies—particularly those with parent organizations in Australia and the United States—often prefer to position responsibility high in the organization. They formulate guidelines that apply across the entire organization, regardless of local conditions.
As a result, an incident at one location can lead to a rule that applies to the entire organization. Each site is then presented with mandatory solutions for problems that may not even exist locally. This leads to alienation from the safety policy and to a pro forma implementation. While liability at the top is formally covered, this often comes at the expense of the credibility of local safety departments and their policies.
Audits
Covering liability typically also involves regular audits. These audits tend to focus more on the documented implementation of regulations than on the actual effect of the rules on operational processes. A QESH department may spend at least a week preparing documentation for an audit and another week facilitating the auditors.
Although many questions are asked, the essential ones are often overlooked:
- Does each individual rule actually contribute to making the organization safer?
- Does the overall set of rules align with the organization’s management philosophy?
- Is there also an audit of the audit process itself—in other words, are auditors focusing on the right issues, and does auditing in this way actually add value?
Back to the essence: why did we introduce rules in the first place?
Is a rule really the best way to regulate behavior?