What is a Safety Management System (SMS)?

Safety in the workplace goes beyond compliance with regulations—it’s fundamental to stable business practices that can be sustained into the future.

Every year, workplace accidents and injuries not only impact employee wellbeing, but also lead to significant financial losses due to downtime and compensation costs. 

Implementing structured safety measures is an effective and responsible approach to preventing these incidents and promoting a healthy work environment. A Safety Management System (SMS) provides a systematic approach to managing safety, incorporating accountabilities, policies, and procedures.

What is a safety management system?

A Safety Management System (SMS) is a comprehensive organisational framework designed to manage safety elements in the workplace. It integrates all aspects of safety, including management policies, practices, and procedures, to ensure a systematic approach to handling safety risks.

The primary objective of an SMS is to proactively identify potential risks and implement preventative measures to reduce or eliminate them. By fostering habits of continuous improvement and compliance, an SMS helps organisations to not only meet legal requirements but also significantly improve real safety.

Through this structured approach, an SMS reduces human error and oversight to minimise the incidence and severity of workplace accidents that might otherwise accompany a particular industry.

What are the components of a safety management system?

An SMS is built on four key pillars: safety policy, safety risk management, safety assurance, and safety promotion.

1. Safety Policy

This pillar defines management’s approach to safety. It enumerates the safety objectives, providing a clear directive for maintaining rigorous safety standards. The policy serves as a foundation, aligning the organisation’s broader strategic direction with its safety management practices, and establishing clear safety goals.

2. Safety Risk Management

The pillar of action. It involves the systematic identification, evaluation, and mitigation or control of hazards associated with organisational activities. Careful planning is critical to this phase, as it defines how risks are managed and outlines the necessary steps to mitigate potential accidents or incidents. Ideally, key safety issues are addressed before they escalate.

3. Safety Assurance

This component focuses on the ongoing evaluation of the established safety practices and their effectiveness. Feedback is what separates the blind from the agile. It includes the processes used to detect and correct safety problems and to ensure that previous actions taken to mitigate risks are still effective. Safety assurance activities involve continuous monitoring and regular reviews of safety data to ensure continued compliance and make improvements on safety performance.

4. Safety Promotion

The final pillar—safety promotion—encompasses training, communication, and activities aimed at enhancing overall organisational safety awareness. This is the human element. It involves continuous education and training of employees to ensure they understand their roles within the SMS, and emphasises the importance of integrating safety into the core values of the organisation. Remember, a system is only as good as its participants' involvement.

How does a Safety Management System differ from a simple safety plan?

A simple safety plan is a document that outlines basic safety precautions and procedures for specific tasks or conditions. It typically focuses on compliance with immediate legal requirements and provides guidelines for avoiding accidents and injuries on a smaller scale.

The primary purpose of a simple safety plan is to address straightforward safety concerns through clear, predefined steps and to ensure workers are aware of these procedures.

In contrast, a safety management system encompasses a much broader scope, integrating comprehensive safety measures into all organisational operations.

An SMS is dynamic, designed for continual improvement and adaptation to new safety challenges and regulatory changes. It involves not just planning and implementation but also extensive risk assessment, ongoing monitoring, and active involvement from management and employees.

This makes an SMS more complex and robust compared to a simple safety plan, offering a systematic approach to managing safety at a higher, more strategic level. It is virtually indispensable to any organisation with significant complexity, even where physical safety is a low risk.

Is a Safety Management System (SMS) legally required for businesses in Australia?

In Australia, while implementing an SMS aligns with best practices and can significantly enhance workplace safety and compliances, it isn’t explicitly legally required for all businesses. However, under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (WHS Act), businesses are mandated to ensure the health and safety of their workers and others in the workplace. This involves creating systems and processes that prevent or minimise the risk of injury and illness.

Moreover, for specific industries, such as mining or construction, there may be more detailed regulatory requirements that necessitate certain aspects of a safety management system.

For the mining industry specifically, the WHS Act goes further, mandating the development and implementation of a Mine Safety Management System (MSMS) to address and document site-specific safety and health risks comprehensively.

The Act and related regulations outline that employers must provide a safe work environment, ensure safe operation and handling of goods and substances, provide adequate training and supervision, and actively manage and assess workplace risks.

Adopting a structured SMS like myosh can significantly streamline the process for businesses aiming to achieve certification under AS/NSZ ISO 45001:2018. This structured approach not only aligns with the comprehensive requirements set by the standard but also enhances an organisation’s ability to systematically manage workplace safety.

How myosh can guide your Safety Management System journey

Effective safety management systems are essential for ensuring the health and safety of workers and others in the workplace, as mandated by the Work Health and Safety Act 2011. myosh is a safety management software platform designed to simplify these compliance efforts and enhance overall safety procedures to give you everything you need from A-Z.

By adopting myosh, organisations can integrate critical safety tasks, manage risks effectively, and ensure robust compliance with workplace health and safety regulations, all while maintaining a safer working environment. Measurable results in saving lives and preventing life-altering injuries is what has kept the myosh delivery and support teams dedicated to the industry for over 20 years.

To see how myosh can support and even transform your safety management efforts, start your free trial today with myosh and explore the capabilities firsthand.