Global EHS Risk blog
Talk my (safety) language
Tjeerd Hendel-Blackford
EHS Regulatory Consultant
Be honest, unless you are studying hard for a UK
safety qualification, do you have a copy of the
UK’s Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 on your
bedside table? If you are responsible for operations in India or China, maybe you like to browse
through the Indian Factories Act, 1948 or the Law
of the People’s Republic of China on Work Safety
over your morning coffee? I thought not… Regulations are certainly not up there with Tolkien,
Grisham, Rowling et al, for providing a good story.
Reading laws, in any language, can be like reading
a completely separate “foreign” language within a
language. Definitions, references, cross-references, caveats and exceptions all add to the potential for confusion and yet they are a crucial tool in
trying to ensure that workplaces are safe and that
employees are healthy.
It doesn’t help that laws are constantly updated,
amended and replaced: Turkey, for example, has
just completed revamped its health and safety
legislation.
In a recent webinar looking at the challenges
faced by EHS legal compliance auditors around
the world, we asked participants to rank the
greatest difficulties they faced. In a catch-all list,
at the top were ”language barriers” (57.1%), followed by “unfamiliar legal framework/system”
(51.8%). In a distant third was “lack of access to
local authorities” (33.9 %).
As such, having to ensure compliance with the law
across different jurisdictions is one of the biggest
challenges an international EHS or Safety Manager
can face. Being aware of, finding and then understanding the legislation that applies to you in an
unfamiliar country are all significant hurdles.
Enhesa Flash May/June 2014
Naturally, and logically, many EHS managers
place their faith and trust in their local in-country staff to ensure they stay on top of regulatory
change and make sure they are compliant. That
may give a certain piece of mind, but it can be a
risky strategy as they will face the same challenges as anyone else, especially if they don’t have a
legal background. At Enhesa we have frequently
encountered situations where personnel on the
ground in a factory say they are compliant with
the law; even tick the appropriate boxes on the
corporate checklist…but in reality this is not the
case and when we have subsequently carried out
a legal compliance audit of that facility in question
have identified numerous, some serious, findings.
Often facilities are simply not aware of their obligations under the law.
The innate complexity of the law has to take a
certain amount of blame for this type of situation.
Laws are not accessible and user friendly by their
very nature. This will inevitably lead to people having little or no knowledge of, or interest in, the law.
There can also simply be no impetus, due to a
culture of lax safety standards or poor enforcement, to take a more proactive approach to complying with regulation.
This is, of course, a dangerous game. The buck
tends to stop more and more with senior management when it comes to responsibility, and accountability for ensuring compliance. Enforcement is
also on the rise, as I explored in a previous posting.
What is the solution? Careful management, appropriate regulatory compliance tools and local
legal and cultural awareness are just some of the
critical factors in keeping your people safe.
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