The Frontline Manager’s Role in

Safety Management Systems

May 2016
This paper was prepared by the Safety Management International Collaboration Group (SM
ICG). The purpose of the SM ICG is to promote a common understanding of Safety Management
System (SMS)/State Safety Program (SSP) principles and requirements, facilitating their
application across the international aviation community. In this document, the term
“organization” refers to a product or service provider, operator, business, and company, as well
as aviation industry organizations; and the term “authority” refers to the regulator authority,
Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), National Aviation Authority (NAA), and any other relevant
government agency or entity with oversight responsibility.
The current core membership of the SM ICG includes the Aviation Safety and Security Agency
(AESA) of Spain, the National Civil Aviation Agency (ANAC) of Brazil, the Civil Aviation Authority
of the Netherlands (CAA NL), the Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand, the Civil Aviation
Authority of Singapore (CAAS), the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) of Australia, the
Direction Générale de l'Aviation Civile (DGAC) in France, the Ente Nazionale per l'Aviazione
Civile (ENAC) in Italy, the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), the Federal Office of Civil
Aviation (FOCA) of Switzerland, the Finnish Transport Safety Agency (Trafi), the Irish Aviation
Authority (IAA), Japan Civil Aviation Bureau (JCAB), the United States Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) Aviation Safety Organization, Transport Canada Civil Aviation (TCCA) and
the Civil Aviation Authority of United Kingdom (UK CAA). Additionally, the Civil Aviation
Department of Hong Kong (CAD HK), the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), and
the United Arab Emirates General Civil Aviation Authority (UAE GCAA) are observers to this
group.
Members of the SM ICG:
• Collaborate on common SMS/SSP topics of interest
• Share lessons learned
• Encourage the progression of a harmonized SMS/SSP
• Share products with the aviation community
• Collaborate with international organizations such as ICAO and authorities that have
implemented or are implementing SMS and SSP

For further information regarding the SM ICG please contact:

Regine Hamelijnck Jacqueline Booth Amer M. Younossi
EASA TCCA FAA, Aviation Safety
+49 221 8999 000 (613) 952-7974 (202) 267-5164
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Igor Penna Mike Hutchinson

ANAC CASA
+55 613 3144 826 +03 9518 2774
[email protected] [email protected]

SM ICG products can be found on SKYbrary at: http://bit.ly/SMICG

To obtain an editable version of this document, contact [email protected].

Foreword
This document has been developed by the Safety Management
International Collaboration Group.
Although senior managers are ultimately responsible for managing the
SMS, it is you, the frontline managers and supervisors, who have to
implement the safety activities at the sharp end. Every day you and your
team are faced with operational hazards and risks. As a result, you are
constantly managing the many internal and external pressures of
delivering a service safely.
It is your involvement and contribution to safety management that is
essential to the success of the organisation’s SMS.
We hope that by reading this, you will get a better understanding of
what a Safety Management System is and the important role you play
within it.

“Management focus is the key to quality safety performance. Like all

other management functions highly effective leadership is essential…”
George Robotham, 2012
What is a safety management system?
There is a common misperception in aviation about where safety sits in the
organization. Many have traditionally believed that safety happens and
belongs on the flightdeck, on the ramp or in the hangar. Others would argue
that safety is the responsibility of senior management. In reality, safety is a
shared responsibility across the whole organization.

The frontline manager, he or she has to deal with the realities of delivering
products and services on time whilst also ensuring that they are delivered
safely. Few could argue that the implications of poor safety decisions or
behaviors are evident in line operations, production and maintenance, but
where does the ownership of safety sit?

The introduction of SMS places the ownership of safety and safety culture
directly in the hands of management. This means management at all levels
and not just the accountable executive or the Senior Managers. Turning the
safety commitment into actions occurs at the level of the frontline manager.
This is where priorities are implemented, resources distributed and the safety
message walked and talked.

More importantly, it is at this level of management where the safety culture of

the organization is reinforced: A frontline manager leads by example,
demonstrating the common set of beliefs and behaviors that provide the
foundation for a good safety culture.

Regardless of the nature of the products and services that organizations

deliver and the competing demands, safety must be a priority. It makes sense
from a practical perspective and is a must from a moral and legal perspective.
The Frontline Manager needs to understand the legal implications in respect
to the role they play.

Proactive safety management practices provide the frontline manager with

the knowledge they need to understand hazards and risks in their daily
operations. Moreover, from a legal perspective, making every effort to know
everything you can about your hazards and risks and taking appropriate action
demonstrates that you did everything you could to manage the safety risks of
the operation.
 “The immediate cause may be human or technical failure, but these in turn usually stem
from organisational failures which are the responsibility of management.”

The Rt Hon Lord Cullen PC, The Ladbroke Grove Rail Inquiry, 2000.

Safety management systems defined

A safety management system is a businesslike approach to safety. It is a
systematic and proactive process for managing safety risks. As with all
management systems, it provides goal setting, planning, and performance
monitoring. A safety management system is woven into the fabric of an
organization. It becomes part of the culture, the way people do their jobs 1.

What a safety management system is - practically

Managing safety is really about managing safety risk, which means trying to
prevent bad things from happening, or if something does go wrong, or slips
through the cracks, trying to minimise the consequences of the event.
Safety management is about accepting that things will go wrong regardless
of whether you believe you have robust processes and procedures. The
frontline manager is closest to the people using these processes and
procedures. They are ideally placed to identify weaknesses and potential
risks in order to take appropriate action and measure how well risk controls
are working.

What a safety management system isn't – practically

A safety management system is not the same as a Quality Management

System (QMS), although they do share many of the same features and
capabilities, such as performance targets, reporting, governance and
performance monitoring. The objective of a QMS is the control of processes
to achieve predictable and desirable results that meet with the customer’s
and organization’s requirements. Whereas the objective of an SMS is to
monitor and control operational safety risks, and to improve the
organization’s safety performance.

1
Transport Canada TP 13739 E (04/2001)
If your organization has a functioning QMS, then your staff will already be
familiar with the basic features of a management system—which is vital to
the implementation, sustainability and integration of your SMS.

Finally, the SMS is not just a manual, a database, or a reporting process;

these are all tools. It is how safety is managed day to day and becomes part
of your organization’s culture. To be effective, it should penetrate into the
operation’s processes and activities and facilitate informed decision making.
It is a vital management tool and for it to be effective it relies upon you to
encourage reporting and provide feedback as your staff are the eyes and
ears of the organization. The SMS is the decision-making ‘brain’ of the
system and you are responsible for ensuring the right information gets to the
right people.
Why you should be involved:
a practical perspective
Primarily, your SMS gives you control over the safety risks in your day-to-day
activities. As a frontline manager you are responsible to senior management
and other stakeholders to ensure the business is running efficiently and
safely. You are the risk managers and it is what you do every day.

SMS formalizes the decision-making process and provides a mechanism for

assessing whether the risk is acceptable or not. It can support you with the
management of risk. Without a framework, how can you assure yourself,
and your staff, that the risks are acceptable? How do you know—
objectively—when to ‘go’ or ‘not go’? And how would you defend your
operational risk decisions to senior management without a structured
framework?

An effective safety management system provides you with many other

potential benefits, including:

 A clear and documented approach to achieving safe operations that

is translated into work practices
 Better participation of staff in safety leading to an increased sense
of commitment to the organization
 A positive safety culture
 A clearer understanding of the organization’s safety objectives and
how you and your teams contribute to safety improvements
 Improvement of processes and procedures to increase operational
efficiency
 The ability to support and justify decision making
 Better protection when things go wrong
The managers most responsible for a company’s success or failure happen to be the
ones with whom the CEO spends the least amount of time. The people I’m talking
about are frontline managers…It is the frontline managers who must motivate and
bolster the morale of the people who do the work—those who design, make, and sell
the products or deliver services to customers. These managers are central to a
company’s [safety] strategy because they oversee its execution. They represent an all-
important feedback loop that allows the CEO to stay abreast of the latest
developments….

Fred Hassan, The Frontline Advantage, Harvard Business Review

Who is the Frontline Manager?

A frontline manager can be a supervisor, team leader, project leader or a middle

manager. Typically, they are at the first level of management. In a smaller
organization they may manage one or two employees, in larger organizations
they may have many more employees reporting to them. These employees
usually have no management responsibility themselves. So it is the frontline
manager that guides and directs their team in the performance of their tasks.

Over the past decades, the frontline manager has become more than a task
master who monitors and controls work. They are often required to administer
additional tasks such as counselling, employee management, disciplinary action
and measuring performance and the focal point for communicating issues. The
role has evolved into a critical function within the organization and is pivotal in
respect to safety and the organizational culture.
What’s Driving SMS?
Your authority is required by the International Civil Aviation Organization
(ICAO) to implement SMS. ICAO has also introduced state safety program
(SSP) requirements. Essentially, the SSP provides a mechanism for your
authority to identify, manage and monitor safety risks at a national level. If
you think about it, this is similar to the SMS your organization has
implemented. Your SMS provides vital safety risk information for the
improvement of aviation safety in your country.

SMS is also driven by a recognition that, in spite of the already good safety
record in aviation, there is always room for improvement. It is expected that
as air traffic movements continue to grow, if we do nothing more there will
be an unacceptable increase in incidents and accidents.. SMS is a proactive
response to this reality and to the increasing complexity of aviation
operations. In 1997, James Reason published Managing the Risks of
Organizational Accidents. Reason argued that improving the aviation safety
record, addressing both the human and organizational factors that lead to
accidents, is critical.

“There are two kinds of accidents: those that happen to individuals and those that
happen to organizations. Individual accidents are by far the larger in
number…[organizational accidents] are comparatively rare, but often catastrophic,
events that occur within complex modern technologies…”

“Organizational accidents have multiple causes involving many people operating at

different levels of their respective companies…Organizational accidents are the product
of recent times, or more specifically, a product of technological innovations which have
radically altered the relationship between systems and their human elements.”

James Reason, Managing the Risk of Organizational Accidents, Ashgate Publishing, 1997.
How you get involved:
Leading by example
Lead from the front
As a frontline manager, you have a significant role to play in maintaining the
effectiveness of the SMS and encouraging active participation. In concert
with this, you play a critical role in maintaining a positive safety culture when
you lead by example. You must not only be committed to your organization’s
SMS, but you must also be seen to be committed; you must translate the
principles and concepts of SMS into your day-to-day activities. You can do
this by applying risk management practices into your decision making as well
as encouraging staff participation through reporting, safety briefings and
debriefs, proactive safety assessments and quality practices.

The SMS may also help you identify technical and non-technical training
deficiencies and skill shortages within your teams.

Safety Culture

Whether you realise it or not, you play a critical role in shaping the safety
culture of your organization. You are a role model for all the people in your
team. There is no buffer between you and the frontline operational staff:
your behavior will be reflected in your staff’s attitude towards safety and will
determine whether or not you have a positive safety culture. They watch
what you do and will respond when you demonstrate a real commitment to
applying SMS principles in your everyday work practices. If you demonstrate
your personal commitment to safety through your actions, your staff will
also adopt this approach; it will become the normal way of doing business.

You can promote these principles by publicly voicing your views. You can
also declare your commitment to SMS by acknowledging those staff
members who demonstrate exemplary safety behavior, proactively identify
safety issues or suggest safety improvements.
Integrating safety into briefings
One of the best ways to get people involved is by making safety issues a
regular item in your briefings. It is an opportunity to make safety part of
your regular agenda and improve working practices. By integrating safety
issues into these briefings you can:

 Highlight the team’s safety issues, risks and related corrective

measures
 Make the team better understand work practices and how they
impact safety
 Assist the team in understanding the purpose of risk mitigations and
the need to ensure they remain effective
 Adapt the work environment to address hazards and risks in a more
timely way
 Distribute and communicate internal and external safety
information
 Provide feedback on actions taken in response to internal safety
reports
 Actively promote safety and the SMS way of doing business.
 Encourage people to report issues so they can be addressed
Summary
As a frontline manager you have a key role in your organization’s SMS. You
should actively promote your SMS because it will help you identify hazards
and address safety risks and allow you to make informed decisions. The SMS
will help you stay on track and provide a powerful vehicle for positive
change.

You have a significant role in maintaining your organization´s SMS and

encouraging participation. You must not only be committed to it, but you
must translate the principles and concepts of SMS into your day-to-day
activities. This is done by integrating risk management practices into your
decision making, encouraging staff participation and integrating safety
considerations into your everyday activities.

Your role is to lead by example, and this provides a unique opportunity to

directly influence the behavior of your staff and others. When your actions
reflect your words, you help create a positive safety culture by inspiring
others to do the same.