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March 11, 2014

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Measuring Competence

 

Robin Stowell MSc CMIOSH

The proposed changes to the Construction (Design & Management) Regulations 2007 include the removal (or simplification) of Appendix 4: Competence — Core criteria for demonstration of competence. The HSE’s desired approach is to allow organisations to develop their own mechanisms for competence assessment of themselves and other Duty Holders.

Alongside the desktop review of these competence criteria, mainly examining documented safety management systems; the traditional approach to assessing the safety performance is to look at the lagging indicator of accident frequency rates. However, accidents are negative results of safety performance that rely on the organisation’s reporting system to be a true reflection of events. There is a whole separate discussion to be had around the flaws in that argument.

Where risk management is an everyday activity, competence management is largely ignored, but the synergy of combining the two results in a positive and leading indicator of safety performance, i.e. the supervision requirement of the organisation (or individual) undertaking the task. The ratio of activities achieving the ‘desired’ supervision requirement to the total number of activities in scope is expressed as ‘Organisational Competence’.

Whether presented internally to the Management Board, or externally to clients, the power of Organisational Competence allows visibility and management of actual safety capability.

This methodology will be presented and explored during the SHP Expo 2014 on 19th June in London during a spotlight session. If your organisation already has a Risk Register and a Training Matrix and you want to make a significant impact on safety performance, it is a small step to building upon your existing safety management system by assessing individual competence; determining supervision requirement and presenting the leading KPI of Organisational Competence. Be prepared to participate; think differently; and be enlightened. One person will participate in a FREE consultation during the session!

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