Safety Management Systems may struggle with psychosocial factors and other complex phenomena

Certified safety management systems (OHSM) may struggle with complex, multi-factorial matters, like psychosocial safety.

Extracts:

· The OHSM “does not necessarily tackle the most urgent work environment issues and may exclude important aspects of the work environment such as psychosocial factors”

· “some [OHSM] approaches may be ill-equipped to tackle complex sociotechnical issues and psychosocial matters, and risk collapsing these matters into simplified and neat, but incomplete, auditable factors”

· They found “significant although unintended shortcomings, especially the omission of more complex and multifaceted work environment issues such as well-being, work intensity and a number of psychosocial work environment issues”

· “Almost all the [OHSM] indicators involve aspects of safety, with few measuring long-term health hazards or aspects of the psychosocial work environment”

· They argue “One possible explanation for the difficulties in dealing with psychosocial work environment issues within certified OHSM systems is thus that the psychosocial work environment is complex, has multiple causes, and appears difficult for management to articulate clearly”

· “Employees also pointed to work environment problems, especially related to psychosocial factors, that the OHSM system did not cover”

· “Production workers … said that management’s focus on safety – especially the system of monitoring safety – led to a neglect of some areas that they considered important: work environment issues such as job intensity (related to work pressure and production goals) and general concern for employee well-being”

· “The lack of concern with the psychosocial work environment … may be related not merely to the .. difficulties and complications but perhaps even more to their inability to function as indicators of good performance. Thus in a system that values external auditability, such issues carry little weight”

· “The external auditors in Metal Works appear to accept these priorities: despite identifying minor technical deviations, they offer no comments on the exclusion of psychosocial risks”

· “This emphasis also shapes work environment concerns by making it risky for employees to raise and deal with issues that have no immediate solution or that may be difficult to measure unambiguously”

· “One possible explanation for the difficulties in dealing with psychosocial work environment issues within certified OHSM systems is thus that the psychosocial work environment is complex, has multiple causes, and appears difficult for management to articulate clearly”

Said differently, OHSM struggle with complex phenomena, and as part of creating readily auditable systems, convert complex phenomena into simplified auditable evidence, becoming therefore ill-equipped to tackle those matters.