Job Summary
Integration and Scope Management
xe2x80x9cSafety Firstxe2x80x9d should be a key element of project integration management because it affects all of the project management knowledge areas outlined in A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOKxc2xae Guide).xe2x80x9cSafety Firstxe2x80x9dmust be integrated into all aspects of the project to ensure success. This integration needs to begin with project scope management. The project manager needs to ensure that the project charter adequately identifies the importance of developing and maintaining a safe working environment for the project team. Each project manager should insist that a project-level Safety Plan is developed implemented and enforced. The project specific plan should be a subset of the corporate safety plan of either the client or the implementing organization. This top-tier project document will provide a framework for the implementation of safety procedures and safe work practices for all project members and subcontractors. The project manager must believe that an injury-free work environment is possible.
Cost, Schedule, and Quality
A project that finishes on time and under budget should not be considered successful if a teammate is seriously injured. If teammates know they are expected to take the necessary time to perform their tasks safely, they will be less likely to make bad decisions as a result of feeling schedule pressure. Fewer bad decisions mean higher quality and fewer delays from rework. Projects having fewer safety problems usually have fewer quality problems. Whether safety is the cause and quality is the effect, or visas versa, is not really the issue. What is important is that safety and quality equate to productivity, and productivity relates to cost and schedule performance. The project manager needs to constantly reinforce the message that safety will not be compromised for any reason, especially, cost or schedule reasons.
Resource Management
One of the aspects of project human resource management is team building. If the members of the project team know that the project manager and the management team are concerned about their personal safety, then they will be more apt to look out for their own safety and the safety of their teammates. One way to accomplish this objective is to establish a Safety Steering Team early in the project life cycle to engage team members in establishing safety standards and objectives for the project.
Another way to encourage responsibility and commitment to safety is to limit the role of the safety professionals to that of staff advisors. The safety staff should establish implementing policies and procedures based on the project specific Safety Plan. The workforce will then use these procedures. Safety Specialists should gather data about the hazards in the work place and communicate to the information to work planners, supervisors, and work crews. The safety staff should be viewed as safety consultants not as safety police. The goal is to get the workforce to become safety focused and not depend on the safety professionals to keep them safe.
One of the main hindrances to achieving safety goals is the presence of hazardous situations or unsafe actions in the workplace. Significant research conducted by the safety industry shows that the number of recordable injuries is inversely proportional to the number of near misses identified and remedied. The more near miss items identified and corrected, the fewer recordable injuries are sustained. One of the major factors affecting this relationship is getting the involvement and commitment of everyone involved in not only identifying problems but also correcting them. Workers need to be encouraged to self-identify hazards and take responsibility to correct unsafe conditions.
The use of incentives to reward good safety practices can be a method for involving workers in improving the work environment from a safety perspective. An incentive program that rewards workers for identifying and correcting hazards coupled with achievement of project-level safety goals can be very effective. Workers who feel that they have control over their environment are more responsible and productive. The trick is to implement an effective, low-cost method of identifying and correcting hazards in the workplace. This can be accomplished by implementing a Safety Observation System (SOS) similar to the one described next.
Exhibit 1. SOS Process
Safety Observation System
SOS Purpose
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