Occupational safety and health management systems in Australia: barriers to success

Gallagher, Clare; Underhill, Elsa; Rimmer, Maureen T.

doi:10.1080/14774003.2003.11667637

Cited by 80 publications

(50 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…They noticed how in some workplaces there may be resistance, or apathy, to putting in place organizational arrangements that enhance the profile of ergonomics, and they suggested that, in these cases, a strategy of cultivating supportive relationships may be more effective. Gallagher et al (2003) analysed whether the performance of such occupational safety and health management systems lived up to expectations. By combining a literature review and extensive interviews about OHS management systems they identified several barriers to successful implementation which included lack of senior management commitment, effective workforce involvement, and programme integration, inappropriate application of audit tools to ensure compliance, the problematic application of these in certain sectors such as small business, contractors, and the part-time and temporary workforce.…”

Section: Barriers To Ohs Interventions In Smes: An Overview Of the LImentioning

confidence: 99%

Barriers to OHS interventions in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises

Masi¹,

Cagno²

2015

Safety Science

115

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a b s t r a c tBarriers to OHS interventions are factors that hinder proper design, implementation and evaluation. An analysis of the barriers is crucial for understanding intervention effectiveness and improving the way in which design, implementation and evaluation of interventions are carried out. However, there is little consensus on how barriers should be understood, how important they are in different contexts, and how they can hinder OHS interventions. This exploratory study based on interviews with 58 safety officers of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) gave an overview of the most frequent barriers to OHS interventions, as well as of the effect of the intervention process phase, of the firm's size and of the sector. The most frequent barriers underline three main issues: regulation, resources, and information. The barriers are mainly concentrated in the design and implementation phases, and the frequency of barriers grows with the size from micro enterprises to small enterprises, and then it decreases from Small to Mediumlarge enterprises. The industry sector of companies does not imply meaningful differences among frequencies.

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Section: Barriers To Ohs Interventions In Smes: An Overview Of the LImentioning

confidence: 99%

Barriers to OHS interventions in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises

Masi¹,

Cagno²

2015

Safety Science

115

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“…However, both ISO 19011 and OHSAS 18001 have a somewhat open approach to the concept of evidence as well as to data collection methods. In general, audits have been criticized for their strong focus on formalities with limited consequences for tangible results (Power, 1997;Gallagher et al, 2003;Poksinska et al, 2006;Blewett and O'Keeffe, 2011;Boiral, 2012), and this problem is potentially even larger for audits of psychosocial risks. This is the issue which we will consider in the next section.…”

Section: The Audit Processmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There are important issues related to the understanding of valid audit evidence within the established and dominant audit discourse and auditor competencies. The established audit discourse appears to have a narrow understanding of how to gain valid evidence because auditors have a tendency to focus on tangible evidence such as documents and other directly observable artifacts (Power, 1997;Gallagher et al, 2003;Poksinska et al, 2006;Blewett and O'Keeffe, 2011;Boiral, 2012;Jespersen et al, 2016a). In this way, the established audit discourse primarily deals with the tip of the organizational iceberg (French and Bell, 1999).…”

Section: The Basic Principles For Auditing Management Of Psychosocialmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing a concept for external audits of psychosocial risks in certified occupational health and safety management systems

Jespersen

Hasle

2017

Safety Science

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a b s t r a c tPsychosocial risks are closely related to work organization, management and organizational context. Therefore, the nature of psychosocial risks is complex and differs from more traditional OHS risks. The OHSAS 18001 standard explicitly claims to deal with all OHS risks, including psychosocial risks, and the audit is a key element in OHS management systems. However, the literature indicates that audits of psychosocial risk management are difficult and multifaceted, and the available practice excludes psychosocial risks from audits. Based on an analysis of the literature and available methodological approaches, we propose a new conceptual model for audits of psychosocial risk management. The model is grounded in the British ''Guidance on the management of psychosocial risks in the workplace" (BSI, 2011), which has recently been developed to remedy the shortcomings of the OHSAS standard. The model builds on an interpretation of audit evidence that includes an integration of general scientific knowledge regarding psychosocial risks with local contextual knowledge. A key tool for the application of the integration is realistic evaluation, which provides the opportunity to assess the link between psychosocial risk management measures and expected outcomes. Another important tool is the qualitative interview, which is the primary method for data collection. The concept has important implications for the dominant audit practice and auditor competencies. It leads to an expanded knowledge base and a broader concept of audit evidence that further presupposes considerable auditor resources, and changes the required knowledge base and skills of auditors.

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“…Critical analysis, however, indicates that this prescription confronts a number of challenges both in relation to the adoption and subsequent operationalisation of such systems Gallagher et al, 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%