5. Leadership
5.1 Leadership and Commitment
5.1.1 General
Top management owns the SHEQ management system. Visible commitment shows up in the following ways:
1Holds itself accountable for whether the system actually works
2Sets SHEQ policies and objectives that line up with the organisation's context and strategic direction
3Embeds SHEQ requirements into how the business runs, rather than bolting them on
4Champions process thinking and risk-based decision making
5Builds and reinforces a culture that delivers the system's intended outcomes
6Makes sure the people, time, budget and tools the system needs are available
7Communicates why effective SHEQ management matters, and why conformance is non-negotiable
8Drives the system to deliver against its stated outcomes
9Engages, directs and backs the people doing the work
10Pushes continual improvement
11Supports other managers to show leadership inside their own areas
12Takes overall responsibility for preventing work-related injury and ill health, and for providing safe and healthy workplaces
13Protects employees who raise incidents, hazards, risks or opportunities from any form of reprisal
14Puts in place a working process for employee consultation and participation
15Supports the establishment and effective functioning of health and safety committees
5.1.2 Customer Focus
Customer focus from the top means:
Customer, statutory and regulatory requirements are clearly understood and consistently delivered against
Risks and opportunities that affect product/service conformance — or the ability to lift customer satisfaction — are identified and acted on
Improving customer satisfaction stays a live priority, not a once-a-year exercise
5.2 Policy
5.2.1 Establishment of SHEQ Policies
Top management writes, signs off and maintains the SHEQ policies. Each policy:
☑Fits the organisation's purpose and context and supports its strategic direction
☑Gives a framework for setting safety, health, environmental and quality objectives
☑Commits to meeting legal and other applicable requirements
☑Commits to satisfying applicable requirements end-to-end
☑Commits to continual improvement of the SHEQ management system
☑Commits to eliminating hazards and reducing SHEQ risks
☑Commits to consulting and involving employees — and their representatives where applicable
5.2.2 Communicating the SHEQ policies
For policies to do their job, they have to:
☑Exist as a controlled, current document
☑Be communicated, understood and visibly applied across the organisation
☑Be available to relevant interested parties when needed
5.3 Roles, responsibilities and authorities
Roles inside the SHEQ management system have clear owners. Top management makes sure each one is assigned, communicated and understood across the business.
Specific responsibilities and authorities are assigned for:
Keeping the SHEQ management system in line with legal requirements and applicable international standards
Confirming that processes are producing the outputs they are designed to produce
Reporting on system performance and improvement opportunities — particularly back to top management
Driving customer focus across the organisation
Protecting the integrity of the system when changes are planned and rolled out
Responsibilities can be delegated. Accountability for the system as a whole stays with top management.
5.4 Consultation and Participation
Employees — and their representatives where they exist — are consulted and involved across every stage of the OH&S management system: development, planning, roll-out, performance review and improvement. The mechanism is documented and used.
The organisation puts in place:
Mechanisms, time, training and resources that make consultation and participation possible
Timely access to clear, understandable information about the SHEQ management system
A process to surface and remove barriers to participation — and minimise the ones that cannot be removed
Non-managerial employees are consulted on:
Identifying the needs and expectations of interested parties
Drafting the SHEQ policies
Assigning roles, responsibilities and authorities
Working out how to meet legal and other requirements
Setting SHEQ objectives and the plans to achieve them
Defining controls for outsourcing, procurement and contractors
Deciding what gets monitored, measured and evaluated
Planning, running and maintaining the audit programme
Continual improvement priorities
Non-managerial employees actively participate in:
Defining the mechanisms used for their own consultation and participation
Hazard identification and the assessment of risks and opportunities
Deciding what actions eliminate hazards and reduce SHEQ risks
Working out competence requirements, training needs, delivery and evaluation
Deciding what needs to be communicated and how
Selecting control measures and seeing them used in practice
Investigating incidents and non-conformities and agreeing corrective actions
The focus on non-managerial employees is about reaching the people who do the work — it does not exclude managers who are themselves affected by the work or by other factors in the organisation.
Practical levers that lift participation: training delivered at no cost to employees, and where possible scheduled inside working hours rather than added on top.