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The most critical factor that separates high performance companies from the rest of the pack is the effective involvement and commitment of management to achieving the organization's pursuits. This is true for every goal a company sets, be it in marketing, operations, human resources, health & safety, supply chain, etc. But why is this so? The simple answer is that nothing happens without the leadership and direction from the managers. By virtue of their position in the organization, management has the greatest power to influence situations in the workplace. In the aspect of occupational health and safety performance of a company, studies using root cause analysis and management system audit tools have most often arrived at leadership deficiencies as the cause of myriads of the organizational problems leading to injuries and damage to company's properties. Safety, just like quality, reliability, integrity, trust and respect for people, has increasingly been finding its way into companies' mission and vision statements as one of the key values that companies promote. By human nature, not everyone in a company will buy into the organization's value system. What this means is that some people in a company will not believe in safety and so for any organization to succeed in achieving its safety aims and goals, it has to adopt some form of governing rules which lay out the conditions members have to meet in order to be part of the organization. This explains why a company has to have a health and safety policy. The Health and Safety policy states an employer's principles and commitments to ensuring a safe and healthy workplace. It is a means by which the management conveys its belief in preventing harm to its people, damage to its asset and to the environment. (i.e. if the company runs an integrated health, safety and environment management system or program). It calls for every stakeholder to play according to the philosophy and standards which the company has set and that everyone will be held accountable by these standards. Stakeholders in this context refer to senior manager(s), managers, supervisors, workers, contractors, suppliers and visitors. In concluding, management engaging involvement and commitment invariably leads to success in achieving the organizational goal of injury and loss prevention. Some of the management involvement and commitment tools and techniques that high performing companies have employed in achieving their health and safety results have been explained in this article. Involvement has to be visible proactive and demonstrable while commitment means that where conflicting pressures exist, the safety of the people, assets, environment and company reputation will be given priority.
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