HEALTH, SAFETY & ENVIRONMENT ACTIVITIES IN ENTERPRISES

Your Health and Safety Objectives

Whether companies are small, medium or large, all enterprises must have objectives for its health and safety activities as for other areas of its operations.

The health and safety objectives must be presented in a concrete form as possible, as they are important preconditions for planning and for activities. Overall objectives must also be established, and they must be documented in writing.

Your company's overall health and safety objectives should be a healthy working environment for all, safe and secure employment conditions and meaningful work for the individual.

Your company's HSE Obligations are in general;

You must arrange for effective planning, organisation, control, monitoring and review of preventive and protective measures in the company.

• Ensure a safe workplace by eliminating or controlling health risks
• Provide and maintain safe plant and machinery
• Operational systems must be set safe
• Articles and substances must be used, moved, and stored safely
• Provide adequate welfare facilities
• Ensure your employees access to competent health and safety advice
• Provide adequate information, instruction, training, and supervision
• Give your employees adequate training in health & safety
• Train your employees, they must be competent to do their working tasks
• Consult with your employees on matters that affects their health and safety
• Maintain safe and healthy working conditions
• When you have 5 or more employees, you must write down and present your company's Occupational  Health & Safety Policy

Your Occupational Health and Safety Policy

The occupational health and safety policy sets out your general approach and objectives, and the arrangements you manage for health and safety in the company.

When you have 5 or more employees, you must also have a written policy statement that shows your staff and other people your commitment to health and safety.

• The policy statement which describes how health and safety controls are implemented and monitored, must be reviewed regularly.
• Roles and responsibilities regarding health and safety issues in your company must be clarified
• Risk analysis and assessment must be carried out, and plans of action made and carried out according to assessments.

Your obligation to maintain Internal Control

Successful health and safety activities require leadership from the top. It is therefore absolutely neccessary that you integrate internal control in the overall management and planning of your company. 

As the person responsible for the company you must ensure that internal control is introduced and performed, and that this is done in collaboration with your employees and their health and safety representatives.

You are also obliged to see that internal control is monitored and reviewed to ensure that it functions as intended, Continual assessment of internal control activities is required.

Internal control which requires good order and a carefully prepared system, shall be adapted to the size of the company, its nature, activities and risks, to the extent required to comply with requirements of  the health and safety legislation. 

	AUDIT / INTERNAL CONTROL	DOCUMENTATION REQUIRED	YOUR TARGETS FOR IMPROVEMENT!
1	HSE laws and regulations that apply to the company must be accessable, and show an overview of requirements important for the company	Written documentation
	Train all your employees for gaining sufficient knowledge through systematic health and safety activities, including updates and information on changes	Written documentation
3	Ensure that your employees are competent to do their work	Written documentation
4	Write down your company's health and safety objectives	Written documentation
5	Make an overview of the company's organisation, including authorities, duties and allocation of health and safety responsibilities.	Written documentation
6	Risk Assessment: Identify risks/hazards and problems. Assess the risks; make plans and actions to reduce risks.	Written documentation
7	Establish routines to identify  breaches of requirements towards the health and safety legislation	Written documentation
8	Ensure that internal control systems function as intended. Carry out systematic surveillance and reviews.	Written documentation
9	Where regulations require certification, certificates must be object to internal control.	Written documentation
10	Voluntary certificates must be issued, in conformity with specified requirements	Written documentation
11	Internal control should also   incorporate requirements regarding the external environment	Written documentation
12	Two or more companies shall, when necessary, agree in writing which company is responsible for co-ordination of internal contro,l when they perform work on the same workplace/area.	Written documentation

The Workplace Health and Safety Policy is different from a Risk Assessment, as it shows the general vision and arrangements for the whole business, while a risk assessment is a systematic review of how you eliminate and control each significant hazard.

Your Health and Safety Risk Assessment

Health and Safety Risk Assessment involves analysing risks as a prelude to managing those risks in order to minimise the effects of unexpected failure. A Risk Assessment must be recorded where there are 5 or more employees, and it should:

• Identify hazardous risks
• Consider it likely that hazardeous situation can occur
• Determine nature of harm from hazardous risks
• Review existing control routines
• Assess the potential impact of each risk
• Prioritize actions

Audit/Internal Control requires good order and a carefully prepared system. In order to maintain the highest standards of safety to comply with statutory requirements, it is necessary for the persons in control of working places to carry out regular safety inspections.

Your Regular Safety Inspections

A written precedure must be established in order to identify the specific areas and to ensure an appropriate frequency of inspection. You are obliged to inform all employees well about the company's practice of internal control, and the management must give a clear view of the company's policy and practice in health and safety activities.

In companies where health and safety routines already exist, it will be required to further develop the routines into a coherent system, for thereafter being incorporated in an internal control system. 

Certification

Where regulations require certification, certificates must be subject to internal control. Voluntary certificates should be issued in conformity with specified requirements.

The External Environment

Internal control must also incorporate requirements regarding the external environment. Today, more and more companies are concerned to integrate the external environment into their business strategy and profile. Internal control is an instrument suited to strengthen this work.

Co-operate with your employees!

Conflicts of interest would appear limited when you and your employees pull together in the same direction. Who are more familiar with operations, waste management, production inputs,  etc, than you employees! It is important that you turn the employees' experience to account to ensure that internal controls function properly.They represents valuable knowledge, and can contribute to a systematic review of all aspects of the company that affect the external environment.

Your employees obligations are in general:

• they have a duty to familiarise themselves with the HSE risk factors at work
• they must take reasonable care for their own health and safety
• they must take reasonable care for the health and safety of others who may be affected by their work
• they must not misuse or interfere with anything provided for their health, safety or welfare
• they must in accordance with HSE training and instructions correctly use personal protective equipment and other work items provided by their employer
• they must co-operate with their managers and put effective plans in place

Your employees can help you identify which working areas that are presenting problems, and help you gain a detailed understanding about risk factors in their work.  Together with your employees and their representatives you can take actions to reduce these problems.

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