Basic Safety and Risk Management Principles
In what is considered one of the most effective safety
and risk management programs ever developed, Proctor and
Gamble’s Key Elements, has been able to achieve significant
improvements in both health and safety. This remarkable
association validates the key element approach, which are
listed as follows:
1. Organizational Planning and Support.
a. Clear expectations.
b. Management and employee involvement.
c. Goal setting and action planning.
2. Standards and Practices
a. Standard implementation.
b. Safe Practices.
c. Planning for safe conditions.
3. Training
a. Site training systems.
b. Qualification of safety risk management
resources.
4. Accountability and Performance Feedback.
a. Safety Sampling.
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b. Behavior feedback.
c. Performance tracking (Olson, 1999).
Because this system effectively integrates risk management
into the corporate fabric, it affirms that accidents cannot
be simply dismissed as events that do not involve the
management system.
In addition to using Proctor and Gamble’s Key element
methods, management must realize reacting after the
accident or event cannot accomplish effective risk control.
In essence, reactive safety management focuses on the
symptoms rather than the root causes while a proactive
safety management approach searches for ways to measure
systems that produce results (Earnest, 1997). As
illustrated in the following literature review, successful
industrial maintenance programs also rely heavily on root
cause analysis and measurement of results to achieve
continuous improvement. This literature review will show
how proactive management of both maintenance and safety