Introduction

It has been suggested that any well designed safety program or system is only as effective as the day-to-day ability of everyone in the organisation to rigorously follow procedures correctly and safely every time
This paper seeks to highlight the critical components of an OHSMS and demonstrate also how a well-designed OHSMS will address the day-to-day abilities of organisations personnel to follow safety procedures every day.
Modern employments factors such as transient work forces and cultural diversity have been shown to impact on the abilities of a workforce to comply with procedures. This paper will address these issues and demonstrate how effective OHSMS will assist in identifying lapses in compliance. …show more content…

(Anonymous, 2013)

Part time employment represents a challenge to employers in so far as the financial outlay in training can have a limited return for transient employees. Organisation without a strong safety culture may find it difficult to satisfy their legislatively mandated requirements to provide training for workers they believe to be short term.
Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems

Organisations may introduce on Occupational Health and Safety Management system (OHSMS) for a variety of reasons, including:

• Legal reasons
• Ethical concerns
• Industrial relations
• To improve financial performance
Implementation of an effective OSHMS should, however, primarily lead to a reduction of workplace injury and illness, minimising the costs of workplace accidents. (Standards Australia, 2001)

There are five (5) driving principles that an OHSMS devised in line with Australian Standard 4804 – Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems, 2001, which are:

• Policy;
• Planning;
• Implementation;
• Measure and evaluation; and
• Management review.

Fig 1. Continual Improvement (Standards Australia, 2001)

The framework for managing risk is based upon a ‘Plan – do – check – act’ cycle. This cycle, often referred to as the Deming cycle is a problem solving process adopted by firms engaged in continuous improvement (Bhat, 2010, p. 276).

If effectively planned and implemented, each stage of the