What are the best practices for ensuring safety management systems are sustainable and continuously improved?

1 Establish a safety culture

Establishing a safety culture that promotes trust, communication, and learning among all stakeholders is essential for ensuring SMS are sustainable and effective. This culture is based on shared values, beliefs, and attitudes that guide people's behavior and decisions related to safety. To foster this culture, top management should demonstrate commitment and leadership for safety, provide adequate resources and training, encourage reporting and feedback on safety issues, recognize and reward positive safety behaviors, implement corrective and preventive actions based on data and analysis, and review and update safety policies and procedures regularly.

3 Adopt a risk-based approach

A third best practice for ensuring SMS are sustainable and effective is to adopt a risk-based approach that prioritizes the most significant and probable hazards and risks, and allocates resources and actions accordingly. This approach can help to identify and assess the sources and consequences of potential hazards and risks, as well as establish risk criteria and thresholds for acceptable levels of risk. It also allows for the implementation of risk controls and mitigation measures to reduce or eliminate risks, while monitoring and evaluating the performance of those risk controls. Additionally, it's important to review and update the risk profile and risk management plan periodically.

4 Involve all stakeholders

A fourth best practice for ensuring SMS are sustainable and effective is to involve all stakeholders, both internal and external, in the design, implementation, and improvement of SMS. Stakeholders are individuals or groups who can affect or be affected by the SMS, such as employees, customers, suppliers, regulators, and community members. Involving stakeholders can help gain input and feedback for SMS, understand their needs and expectations regarding safety, enhance their awareness of safety topics, build trust among stakeholders, and resolve conflicts that may arise from safety issues.

5 Continuously improve SMS

Continuously improving SMS is a fifth best practice for ensuring they are sustainable and effective. This can help measure and monitor the progress and results of SMS, identify and address any gaps or weaknesses, implement and evaluate changes and improvements, benchmark against industry standards, and learn from successes and failures. Collecting, analyzing, and using data and information on safety performance, issues, and trends can further help to ensure SMS are effective.

6 Seek external assistance

A sixth and final best practice for ensuring SMS are sustainable and effective is to seek external assistance from experts, consultants, or peers who can provide guidance, advice, or feedback on SMS. Doing so can grant access to specialized knowledge, skills, and experience, as well as an objective and independent assessment of SMS. You can also identify and adopt the best practices and innovations in SMS, while avoiding or overcoming the common challenges and pitfalls in SMS. Ultimately, seeking external assistance can enhance the credibility and reputation of SMS.