Safety Management Systems in BC

Active Health & Safety Management

Active health and safety management in BC is an essential first step toward improving your organization's health and safety culture. There are two aspects of managing health and safety performance for continual improvement:

1. Managing an effective health and safety program
2. Developing and implementing initiatives for improving health and safety in your workplace

An active health and safety management approach encompasses the health and safety program approach and builds upon it.

Standards for Active Health & Safety Management

The two aspects of actively managing health and safety, mentioned above, are combined in the framework of occupational health and safety management system (OHSMS) canadian standards such as CSA Z1000-14.
OHSMS standards outline the principles and processes to follow for continual health and safety improvement. OHSMS standards can be applied to any industry. They do not make reference to specific hazards, but they indicate the need for specific health and safety processes and proactive management processes.
Within these standards are components of an effective health and safety program, including:

• Comprehensive site risk assessments
• Compliance evaluations
• Workplace inspections
• Incident investigations
• Legal requirement reviews
• Worker consultation processes

These standards also provide guidance for active health and safety management processes, which must include these components:

• Leadership and commitment
• Robust annual health and safety planning
• Measurement and tracking of goals and objectives
• Ongoing organization-wide self evaluations

​Adopting an OHSMS standard for your organization is voluntary, but it is very beneficial. Using these standards of active health and safety management can steer you towards best practice. Actively managing health and safety is a key step to improving your organization's health and safety culture.