How to write health and safety policy

Health and Safety policy the first building block of health and safety management system of an organization – without defining the policy the health and safety system cannot main or progress. The health and safety policy or a policy in general composed of three important components, the policy statement, the organization, and the arrangements. All three components are described in detail as under;

1.    General statement of intent

The general statement of intent shows expression toward the importance of safety and our commitment to managing health and safety. Further, it also expresses what we want to achieve.

The policy must have below features;

ü  Compile and explicit

ü  Approved and signed by head/owner/director of the company

ü  Must be communicated to all stakeholder including staff, vendors and visitor through available means of communication

ü  Up-to-date

ü  Written in understandable language (Local language)

2.    The organization

The organization mainly contains the details of role and responsibilities an organization need to establish and manage health and safety systems.

The organization part of the policy define clear change of command for routine and emergency situations.

Some important roles and responsibilities can be define on below heads;

a)    Role and responsibilities of head/owner/director of the company

b)    Role and responsibilities of the Health and Safety Committee

c)    Role and responsibilities of the Safety officer

d)    Role and responsibilities of the Safety team

e)    Role and responsibilities of Firefighter

f)     Role and responsibilities of the first-aider

g)    Role and responsibilities of Staff

h)    Role and responsibilities of Vendors

i)      Role and responsibilities of visitors

3.    Arrangements

Arrangement part is the largest part of health and safety policy as it defines the strategic approach of the company to achieve the organization aims to define in the policy statement. Two important areas of arrangements section we must be known to all HSE professionals are preparedness and risk mitigation. Because most of the arrangement section move around these two areas, in preparedness organization, define the strategy of capacity building for this purpose awareness is created through training and promotion of health and safety importance among staff. Further, in the preparedness area provision of sufficient health and safety equipment and stocks are included as to respond to any emergency and reduce suffering and losses all these important areas are covered in the preparedness part.

Now, the risk mitigation part defines the process and the frequency for risk assessment along with the prioritization of areas.

Example of Health and Safety Policy Statement
To create the interest of viewers we share a sample policy statement here - if anyone wants us to help in H&S policy making we are happy to serve;

SAMPLE HSE POLICY STATEMENT

Threshold Concept Private Limited

TC considers places health and safety on the top priority in its all operations and tasks.
Our health and safety goals are zero rates of accidents at our work site.
The following fundamentals must be applied to all activities in our company in order to
achieve our commitment;

• Eliminate hazards and hazardous situations to minimize risks to personnel, property, and processes
• Streamline report mechanism at nearness level
• Monitoring and capacity building of staff to lower human-induced incidents

As CEO Threshold Concept, I am committed to ensuring that our company,
our resources, and procedures enable us to achieve these objectives.
I am on behalf of TC will ensure the implementation of the Health and Safety Policy in all activities of TC.

Date: 2-2-2020 13:00