Personal Responsibility for Safety

The implementation of Personal Responsibility for Safety (PRfS) must be tackled in a structured way. If we want personnel to consistently exhibit the "right" behaviours we must provide a support structure that ensures the right level of support and encouragement. A change in behaviour requires consistent reinforcement and practice and it is all too easy to inadvertently stop this evolution through inconsistent Management action, loss of focus or the sending of mixed messages.

Before embarking on any major systems or organisational change, consideration must be given to how this will be delivered and received. Change initiatives often fail because insufficient consideration has been given to the impact they will have on the organisation and how employees will react to it. To assist with the introduction of the System Requirements (the Personal Requirements and the Support Systems) incorporated in this Guidance we have included links to three change management process documents (Ref. 27) and recommend you consider applying the processes detailed as you implement any changes.

The PRFS guidance is made up of the nine elements (excluding the Overview) listed below.

You may find reading the How To Use section at the base of this page useful before accessing the nine elements.

The nine elements are each divided into two distinct parts. The first part is Personal Requirements (the desired personal actions and behaviours) and the second part is the Support Systems (the systems and processes that need to be in place).

The guidance within elements is sometimes duplicated so that if a particular area (e.g. Personal Leadership) is being reviewed it is not essential to review all elements beforehand.

The guidance is intended to be used by Company Management and HS&E Professionals and an Overview is provided to introduce the PRfS initiatives.

Within the 'See Also' section of each of the nine elements there are links to five key resource documents as follows:
- An Introduction Chart that summarises what is required from individuals and what a company is expected to provide to support the PRfS initiatives;
- A Gap Analysis Tool/System Checklist which can be used to record how fully the PRfS aims are being met by an individual or company;
- Two Maturity Matrices, one for personal use and the other for company use, that serve to provide a rapid assessment of the current state of personal or company wide PRfS compliance;
- A summary of the process required for creating major change.

The guidance also contains links to reference material (see footnote* below) that the PRfS work group has identified as "good practice" (the practice exists, is working, and is already delivering results within one of the companies involved in our industry). This "good practice" can be adopted "as is" or modified to fit within a company's existing systems.

It is usually unnecessary to distribute full details of the PRfS guidance to all personnel within a company as this is intended to provide the working tools which are required to set up and administer the system. Paper copies of the PRfS Introduction information, for distribution to a large number of employees, are available from Step Change in Safety on request.

* All reference material has been provided in good faith by the contributing companies. No liability is accepted by the contributing companies for the use of or reference to any part of this material.