A Study of Safety Competency for Leadership Change in Companies with ISO 45001 Certification

Abstract

With lessons from the major industrial disasters, we’ve learned that organizational change (OC) is one of the causes of disasters. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of different OCs on the implementation of the Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems (OH&SMS), and gain deeper insights into the safety competency requirements of the leadership personnel. Fifteen professional occupational safety and health (OSH) managers were invited to perform the impact evaluation through questionnaire. The impact levels of eight types of OCs on the implementation of thirty-two clauses in the ISO 45001 OH&SMS were evaluated. The Kruskal-Wallis test was used to analyze the difference of the impact of OCs on the implementation of the clauses. The Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare the impact level of leadership personnel changes for the companies with different duration of implementing OH&SMS. This study showed that the impact level of the OC on the implementation of OH&SMS varies with the types of OC and the implementation years of the ISO 45001 OH&SMS. Most of the clauses with the top five impact levels for leadership personnel change were clauses 5 (Leadership and worker participation), 6 (planning), 8 (operation) and 9 (Performance evaluation). For companies that have implemented the OH&SMS for a longer time (>10 years), the impact level of leadership personnel change was significantly higher on the implementation of clause 6.1.3 (p = 0.015) for top management, 5.1 (r = 0.008) for OSH manager, and 6.1.4 (r = 0.046) for Department manager. When replacing three major OSH leaders, the company must ensure that they meet the requirements of the key clauses. In order to ensure the achievement of the goal of disaster prevention, it should be confirmed that the safety management does not vary from person to person or affect the organization’s safety culture when OC is initiated.