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Marriott16239  
#1 Posted : 03 July 2020 09:17:27(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
Marriott16239

I'm building a health and safety management system for a global organisation where demonstrable H&S infrastructure and systems are very basic or not present at all. My experience is that the Corporate EHS Team creates the strategy and sets the standards and then local entities "translate" these into local ways of working thus meeting legal requirements and the spirit of the corporate strategy. This way, global KPI's can be set to enable benchmarking, there is consistency in approach and the management of risk.

My organisation has a Corporate EHS fucntion who have one high level policy which instructs each of their individual legal entities to introduce their own management system. There is no other EHS competency in these legal entities in each individual country. My concerns are that while each legal entity is an operating division in its own right, they operate under the Corporate banner and name. Therefore there will be inconsistencies in approach and potential discrepancies and even conflicts with many separate management systems that will only be capable of being auditted if the auditor has knowledge of every system. This for example could result in 20 different policies on new and expectant mothers which "may" meet legal compliannce but which will introduce 20 different ways of managing the subject.

Can I please have views on this approach and whether it would work successfully. Thank you

stevedm  
#2 Posted : 03 July 2020 09:26:02(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
stevedm

...they way I did it a few years back was to agree the minimum standard that would apply across all geographies...if there were specifics then they would either be one local document linked to the above or in principle if the local rules was better than the global then we need to see if we could implement that globally...if the local rules were weak or non-existant then they followed the global rules...most were based on UK/ European and US lead...as an example the UK minimum commercial vehicle maint standards were implemented in Asia...if you need an example Table of cintents buz me a pm with your email...examples we got years ago were from BP who did a very similar exercise...

thanks 1 user thanked stevedm for this useful post.
Jason90212992 on 02/08/2020(UTC)
peter gotch  
#3 Posted : 03 July 2020 16:12:33(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
peter gotch

Marriott

Difficult to answer your question as we don't know what sort of organisation this is nor whether you are employed by the organisation or brought in to help as a consultant or as an interim appointment.

However, I think that the general principles set out by Steve should be valid.

There should come a point where the Corporate centre should make decisions as to whether local legislation and standards are sufficient to meet the Corporate ethos or whether you need to impose some minimum standards that might go well beyond local requirements.

nickstone  
#4 Posted : 27 July 2020 12:04:21(UTC)
Rank: New forum user
nickstone

Originally Posted by: stevedm Go to Quoted Post

...they way I did it a few years back was to agree the minimum standard that would apply across all geographies...if there were specifics then they would either be one local document linked to the above or in principle if the local rules was better than the global then we need to see if we could implement that globally...if the local rules were weak or non-existant then they followed the global rules...most were based on UK/ European and US lead...as an example the UK minimum commercial vehicle maint standards were implemented in Asia...if you need an example Table of cintents buz me a pm with your email...examples we got years ago were from BP who did a very similar exercise...

Hi Steve,

Just following the same principle at the moment. Did/Have you looked at a group wide reporting system, so allusing same formats, currently the way I'm sent information is thorugh excel, word etc and time consuming to get what I need collated. I've a proposal for system auto translates, free text where needed or drop boxes but will allow instant updates, collation of live information and the usual escaltion and action tracking being proposed, cost is the killer, not large, not deal breaker I hope. Any thoughts on this please?

stevedm  
#5 Posted : 27 July 2020 16:05:55(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
stevedm

Hi Nick yes we did along with worldwide behavioural safety program...whether it was good or bad we had SAP...not the best and very expensive..took us nearly 12 months to get that right before we got rid of the legacy systems....big slog and lots of patience needed...we jumped to web reporting and web auditing linked to the IMS as mere 6 months later...as the training system linked to it, TRACCESS helped as everyone had an email as a result (although only in the training system)....Enablon is another tool used extensivley by Pharma organisations...isn't bad but some don't use it to its full potential...not sure I managed to help you there but essentially we went for a web based system that linked directly to the standards, training materials and audit question sets...all of the documents were in English as the company language..with only local documents for checklist being in that country language...

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