Integrated management systems : the vision from the perspective of the Occupational Health & Safety System

Abstract

Currently, individual employees face serious challenges to its occupational health and safety due to the growth of flexible work arrangements often labelled as precarious employment. Human organizations themselves face two major challenges: need for management improvement and demands accomplishment posed by the global emergence where issues like competition and environmental/social awareness are of utmost importance. Several organisational standards have been implemented and certified in order to fulfil these new requirements being the most reported ones ISO9001, ISO14001 and OH&SAS18001 standards. Occupational health and safety management system (OH&SMS) implementation and certification is, in our days, a consolidated reality among organizations due to the fact, that the previously existing management sub-systems were unable to cover all environmental and health and safety problems. Organizations found themselves implementing and certifying management sub-systems. The most common option is to integrate the sub-systems into a single management system. According to several authors, the management of a company should be consistent. Hence, managing through several management sub-systems do not seems a good management practice. Several authors emphasise the role of quality management system (QMS) in the integration process, assuming the integration of OH&SMS and environmental management system (EMS) into a holistic quality management approach. Reported studies concerning the role that EMS and OH&SMS could play in this process are scarce. Management systems integration has been looked as the answer to sustainable development, corporate social responsibility and risk management challenges posed by society demands evolution. These concepts are embedded on environmental and OH&S referentials. Risk assessment and, in a broader sense, risk management have been reported as a viable approach to the integration process, putting OH&SMS as the “pivot” sub-system due to its intrinsically relation with risk concept. Several authors mentioned another common characteristic of the sub-systems standards: preventive actions are more efficient than corrective actions. This proactive concept has its genesis on OH&S philosophy. In this paper, it is intended to depict the main contributions that OH&SMS may add to the integration process, the expected less “miscible” standards requirements, the reported experiences among different types of organizations and possible integrating factors.