Theory: A systems approach to work health and safety management
This section defines key concepts for work health and safety (WHS) management. It explains James Reasons’ Swiss Cheese Model of safety incident causation as a systems-based approach to WHS management; a model proposing that it is the combining of active failures (human errors) and latent conditions that lead to the WHS incidents that harm workers. Subsequently, safety management systems are proposed as a mechanism to identify, and actively resolve latent factors, before introducing safety culture as fundamental to effective WHS management.
"A group or set of related or associated things perceived or thought of as a unity or complex whole" (Oxford Dictionary, 2023, para. 1).
"Human beings contribute to the breakdown of such [complex technological] systems in two ways. Most obviously, it is by errors and violations committed at the 'shape end' of the system...Such unsafe acts are likely to have a direct impact on the safety of the system and, because of the immediacy of their adverse effects, these acts are termed active failures" (Reason, 1997, p. 10).
"Fallibility is an inescapable part of the human condition, it is now recognized that people working in complex systems make errors or violate procedures for reasons that generally go beyond the scope of individual psychology. These reasons are latent conditions....poor design, gaps in supervision, undetected manufacturing defects or maintenance failures, unworkable procedures, clumsy automation, shortfalls in training, less than adequate tools and equipment - may be present for many years before they combine with local circumstances and active failures to penetrate the system's many layers of defences" (Reason, 1997, p. 10).
In the WHS context, “An incident is an unplanned event or chain of events that results in losses such as fatalities or injuries, damage to assets, equipment, the environment, business performance or company reputation” (Wolters Kluwer, n.d., para. 1).
