OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND

HEALTH (OSH)
RISK MANAGEMENT : A PRACTICAL
APPROACH

By:
Abdul Halim Hashim
Head, Occupational Safety & Health Unit
Lecturer, Faculty of Cognitive Sciences & Human Development
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak
[email protected]
Occupational Safety & Health Unit, UNIMAS:
Functions

• Provide OSH technical advice and guidance to university stakeholders

• Monitor university-wide OSH performances by collecting and analysing data into statistics
• Create and propose university-wide OSH policies, guidelines and codes of practices
• Conduct OSH-related research
• Organize university-wide OSH promotional activities
• Organize university-wide OSH training and workshop
• Assist PTj in major accident investigation
• Assist PTj in workplace inspection of highly technical areas or high risk areas
• Liase and cooperate with relevant OSH-related local authorities
• Manage university-wide OSH documents and records
• Manage OSH competent persons
• Manage licensing requirement of boiler, pressurised equipment and lifting equipment
• Issuing Improvement and Prohibition Notice for dangerous occurrences, major hazard
potential or during investigation.
• Secretariat to UNIMAS OSH Central Committee and UNIMAS OSH Technical Committee
Why OSH?

• OSH endeavors to reduce (or ideally eliminate) any form of injury, illness
or damages to human capital and assets.
• Low rates of injury, illness and damage can:
• Improve organization’s reputation
• Improve worker’s morale
• Increase productivity
• Money stays where it should be or spent at areas needed most
(instead of paying for replacement assets, temp workers etc.)
• OSH is increasingly a best practice at best companies/organization,
simply a mark of civilized community.
• Meeting society expectation (family members come home in one piece,
not several pieces)
• Meeting lawmakers expectation
Reference Standards

MS 1722:2011 – Occupational Safety and

Health Management Systems

OHSAS 18001:2007– Occupational Health and

Safety Management Systems
Key Elements Of HSMS

Statement of Intent

OHS as a prime commitment of

management at all levels of UNIMAS
organisation, but particularly at the
top.

Form the basis for management

organisation and implementation
Key Elements Of HSMS

Roles and responsibilities

Duties of individuals from senior

management down to the operational
and administrative staff.

This include duties which may be

required by law
Senior Management Leadership and
Commitment

• For an OSH risk management strategy to be successful in UNIMAS, it

must be driven by senior management
• What management does, rather than what management says,
defines the actuality of commitment or non-commitment to safety.
• What management does permeates the thousands of decisions made
that:
• create the work environment
• set design specifications for facilities and equipment
• establish fire protection standards, and so on.
• What senior management does is interpreted by UNIMAS staff as the
role model to be followed.
• It’s at the senior management level that measurable goals are
established for performance expectations.
Senior Management Leadership and
Commitment

• Paul O’Neil, former chairman and CEO of Alcoa, world's third largest
producer of aluminum, is generally credited for breathing new life into
the company’s safety culture in the late 1980’s

“Paul brought a real passion to the company’s approach to health and

safety. He made it his business to know exactly how many and what kinds
of injuries our people (employees and contractors) were incurring. Having a
CEO who knew literally everything about our health and safety
performance made a fundamental change in our line leaders’ view of health
and safety’s ranking in their daily priorities”

Excerpt from ‘Driving toward “0”, Best practices in corporate safety and health: How leading companies develop safety
cultures’, 2003
Senior Management Leadership and
Commitment

Establishing accountability
• One of the principal indicators of management commitment to safety is
the inclusion of safety performance in the performance review system
(SKT).

‘A plant manager, speaking at a conference, said that the first items

discussed in his annual performance review were his achievements in
relation to previously established goals for employee injuries and illnesses,
environmental occurrences, and fires.

Meeting or not meeting those goals

had a bearing on his salary. He was very much informed about incidents
that had occurred, and his involvement was readily apparent’
Active Involvement of each Individual in
the Workplace

• Each person in UNIMAS contributes to the

consideration of safety at every level of the work
environment.
• Employees are often those closest to the hazard,
and have the most first-hand knowledge of
workplace hazards.
• Often times, safety ideas coming from the worker
are easy to apply, inexpensive, and effective,
and result in greater productivity.
• If employees own the safety initiative, chances
are, they will commit to it long term.
• Employees must believe that they also are
responsible for their safety
• Employees must be provided with the training,
tools, and the necessary authority to act.
Active Involvement of each Individual in
the Workplace

• Examples of effective employee involvement

include participation in:
• Incident investigations
• Procedure development
• Safety and health audits or surveys
• Development and implementation of safety
and health training.
• Job safety analysis.
• Safety and health committee/team
involvement.
• Recommendations for specific actions in
response to employee safety suggestions.
• Problem-solving techniques to seek solutions
to identified safety and health problems
Effective Communication through
Consultation

• Consultation means to appropriately invite and consider employees

responses.
• Involving staff at all levels in the consultation process allows for
ownership of risk identification and treatment of those risks.
• It encourages endorsement for the process and the outcome.
• Establish a framework that allows for active communication between all
parties so that:
• Different points of view can be presented
• All views can be considered before decisions are made, and
• There is room for negotiation about the different points of view with
the aim of achieving resolution of any dispute
Provision of Appropriate Information,
Education and Training

• Employers should consult with their employees

about the necessary information and training they
require to undertake their work safely.
• Safety is a subject in induction training for new
employees.
• Refresher training in safety so that employee are
aware of any changes in the safe work procedure.
• Safety information is embedded everywhere (in
procedures, in brochures, in posters, in minutes of
meeting, signages etc)
• Employees can access hazard information at any
time (i.e. Material Safety Data Sheet or Job Safety
Analysis)
Key Elements Of HSMS

Specification of standards to be
applied in all aspects of work
(performance standard)

Central to this idea is the concept of

risk assessment.

Systems of work and control

measures identified, planned and
implemented.
Hazard Identification, Risk Assessment
and Risk Control at Workplace Level

Source: HSE, UK
Some Definition

• A hazard is anything that may cause harm.

• Risk is the chance, high or low, that somebody

could be harmed by these and other hazards,
together with an indication of how serious the harm
could be.

• A risk assessment is a careful examination of what,

in your work, could cause harm to people, so that
you can weigh up whether you have taken enough
precautions or should do more to prevent harm.

• Workers and others have a right to be protected

from harm caused by a failure to take reasonable
control measures.
Objective Of Risk Assessment

• To provide employees with sufficient knowledge, awareness and

understanding of the risks from hazards, to which they are exposed to.

• To provide a basis for identifying, evaluating, defining and justifying the

selection (or rejection) of control measures for eliminating or reducing
risk.

• To lay the foundations for demonstrating that the risks have been
reduced to a level that is as low as reasonably practicable (ALARP).

• To provide the specific information required by the regulations.

Identify The Hazard

Can be seen/easy to anticipate Unseen/Difficult to anticipate

• Protruding nail on the floor • Pressure
• Moving object/vehicle • Radiation
• Rotating parts of a machine • Gas/Vapor
• Fire or Smoke • Electricity
• Falling objects • Heat
• Sharp objects • Chemical hazard
• Pathogens
• Stress
• Noise & Vibration
• Stored energy
How Do We Identify The Hazards?

• There are many ways:

• By observing (usually through inspection process)

• By analyzing (planning a job/watching a worker

doing the work)

- Job Safety Analysis (simple)

- HAZOP, FTA (more complex)

• Check the regulations, guidelines, technical

standards & codes of practice

• Check manufacturer or supplier information

• Refer past incident data

Some Significant Hazards at UNIMAS

• Fire (especially at east campus)

• Use of chemicals
• Use of pressurized equipment (boiler)
• Use of lifting equipment
• Working at heights
• Biological hazard (exposure to pathogens)
• Steam, heat (auto clave, working outdoor)
• Violence (during travel, out of campus work,
dealing with students or public)
• Use of substances (drugs, alcohol etc)
• All kinds of hazards related to construction
• Mechanical hazard (pinch, cut, entangled in
machines)
• Manual handling
Identifying Population At Risk

• Who are the group of people exposed to hazards?

• Mainly workers are exposed, but there may be others such as:
- Visitors (parents, families of students or employees)
- Students
- Contractors in close vicinity
- Maintenance staff
- Cleaners
- Members of the public
• Are there vulnerable people?
- Young workers
- New and expectant mother
- Aged employees
- Lone worker
- Physically-challenged individual
- Hyper-sensitive individual
Identifying Population At Risk

• Different group of people may be exposed by different means.

• This is true especially for chemical and biological hazards which require
slightly more complex risk assessment due to the diversity of factors
involved.

• There may be contract workers lifting heavy construction materials

during a renovation of college building, but there are also students
going through the area at different point of time.

• Both these group of people have different risk level, but they are at
risk nonetheless.

• During risk assessment, the manner in which different group of people

is exposed to hazards must be described.
The ALARP Principle
(As Low As Reasonably Practicable)

• The ALARP requires “every employer to ensure,

so far as is reasonably practicable, the health,
safety and welfare of all his employees”.

• This remains the basis of the approach for risk

management in Malaysia, and in many other
parts of the world.

• Employers are required to adopt safety

measures unless the cost (in terms of money,
time or trouble) is grossly disproportionate to the
risk reduction.

• Once all such measures have been adopted, the

risks are said to be ALARP.
Criteria For A ‘Suitable And Sufficient’ Risk
Assessment

• Sufficient means that the risk assessment are adequate to show that
risks are ALARP, and do not require further elaboration.

• Suitable means that the risk assessment technique chosen should be

appropriate to the assessment being made.
Forms of Risk Assessment

Qualitative

Semi-
Quantitative

Quantitative
Qualitative Approach

Severity of Harm
Minor Moderate Major Extreme
Very
Low Low Medium Risk Medium Risk
Unlikely
Likelihood

Unlikely Low Medium Risk Medium Risk Medium Risk

Likely Medium Risk Medium Risk Medium Risk High Risk

Very
Medium Risk Medium Risk High Risk High Risk
Likely
Semi-Quantitative Approach

Severity of Harm
Minor Moderate Major Extreme
1 2 3 4
Very
Unlikely 1 2 3 4
1
Unlikely
Likelihood

2 4 6 8
2

Likely
3 6 9 12
3
Very
Likely 4 8 12 16
4
Quantitative Approach

Fault Tree Analysis

QRA - HAZOP
Failure Mode, Effects & Criticality Analysis
Which One Should We Use?
Tiered Approach

Qualitative
or Semi-Q

HIGH RISK

Quantitative
Formula To Calculate Risk
(Quali & Semi-Quan)

Level
Likelihood of Severity
occurrences of harm of
Risk
What is Likelihood?

• The state or fact of something's being likely; probability

• The chance of something happening.

• High chance? Low chance?

What is Likelihood?

Someone is playing dart. What is the likelihood of hitting bullseye?

HIGHLY LIKELY

If:
• The player is not blind, or vision
impaired or drunk etc.
• The player knows how to play dart
• The person is not too far away
from the target
• The dart is a real dart

This is what we call as ‘under normal

circumstances’
What is the likelihood of crashing?

Likelihood is very unlikely, based on past accident data, on the assumption

that weather is good, the pilot is fit, healthy, trained and experienced, and
the helicopter is in good condition
What is Severity of Harm?

degree of something undesirable

What would
happen to
him?
Severity of Harm

What would happen to him? Type Level Classification

Scratches/small wound Injuries Least Minor

Big wound/ Laceration Injuries Moderate

Loss of bodily function Disability Moderate

(temporary)

Loss of bodily function Disability Major

(permanent)

Lose parts of his body Disability Major

Lose his life Death Worst Extreme

Determining Risk Result

Severity of Harm
Minor Moderate Major Extreme
1 2 3 4
Very
Unlikely 1 2 3 4
1
Unlikely
Likelihood

2 4 6 8
2

Likely
3 6 9 12
3
Very
Likely 4 8 12 16
4
Interpreting Risk Result

Severity of Harm
Minor Moderate Major Extreme
1 2 3 4
Very
Unlikely 1 2 3 4
1
Unlikely
Likelihood

2 4 6 8
2

Likely
3 6 9 12 ?
3
Very
Likely 4 8 12 16
4
Interpreting Risk Result

Number Color Term Tolerability Action Plan

1-2 Low Risk Acceptable No additional controls are required.
Monitoring is required to ensure that the
controls are maintained.

3-9 Medium Tolerable Efforts should be made to reduce the

Risk risk, but the costs of prevention should
be carefully measured and limited.

Risk reduction measures should be

implemented within a defined time
period.
12-16 High Intolerable Work should not be started or continued
Risk until the risk has been reduced.

If it is not possible to reduce risk even

with unlimited resources, work has to
remain prohibited.
Risk Control Action Plan

• Risk level form the basis for deciding whether improved controls are
required and the timescale for action.
• The outcome of a risk assessment should be an inventory of actions, in
priority order, to devise, maintain or improve controls.
• The action plan should be reviewed before implementation, typically by
asking:

• Will the revised controls lead to tolerable risk levels?

• Are new hazards created?
• Has the most cost-effective solution been chosen?
• What do people affected think about the need for, and practicality of,
the revised preventive measures?
• Will the revised controls be used in practice, and not ignored in the
face of, for example, pressures to get the job done?
The Hierarchy Of Control
Performance Standard

• It is usually embedded in the rules or procedures of doing work.

• Take for example: using a ladder, performance standard may indicate a
worker to:
• Use a specified ladder that suitable for the type of work
• Setting up the ladder according to safety rules such as below:
Safety Critical Elements & Performance
Standard

• Safety critical elements (SCEs) are those systems and components (e.g.
hardware, software, procedures etc.) that are designed to prevent,
control, mitigate or respond to a major accident event (MAE) that could
lead to injury or death.

• A good example is the Fire Protection system in a building such as

sprinklers, detectors, fire panel, etc.

• Management of the identified SCEs ensures that the safety barriers are
in place and functional.
Performance Standard

• When SCEs are identified, Performance Standards (PS) for each SCE
needs to be defined.

• Is the performance required by the SCE for managing hazard in terms

of:
• Functionality - How does an SCE achieve its goal, what must it
actually do.
• Availability - When would the SCE be required to function
• Reliability - What's the failure rate like for the SCE
• Survivability - Will it work when required
• Interaction/Dependency - Which other system are required to work
before SCE do.
Performance Standard
Record Your Findings And Implement Them

• It can be as simple as filling up a form or writing a short report.

• The most important thing is: Write what you do and do what you
write.

• If you find that there are quite a lot of improvements that you could
make, big and small, don’t try to do everything at once. Make a plan of
action to deal with the most important things first according to risk level.
Review Your Risk Assessment And Update If
Necessary

• Few workplaces stay the same. Sooner or later, you will bring in new
equipment, substances and procedures that could lead to new hazards.

• It makes sense, therefore, to review what you are doing on an ongoing

basis.

• Every year or so formally review where you are, to make sure you are
still improving, or at least not sliding back.

• During the year, if there is a significant change, don’t wait. Check your
risk assessment and, where necessary, amend it.

• If possible, it is best to think about the risk assessment when you’re

planning your change.
Key Elements Of HSMS

Monitoring, measuring and reviewing

performance.

Ensure that the policy, organisations

and arrangements are working
effectively
Key Elements Of HSMS

Defects identified by the review

process must be corrected as soon as
possible.

Make adjustments to the policy,

organisation and arrangements for
implementation.
Key Elements Of HSMS

Identify deficiencies and

improve

The performance compared

with other organization in order
to benchmark progress.
Key Elements Of HSMS

The process of collecting

independent information on the
efficiency, effectiveness and
reliability of the management
system in the organisation
The End
Thank You For Your Attention