Writing your plan
The ultimate purpose of your safety management system is to help avoid loss, injury or death. The process used to write your safety management plan (SMP) and safe operating procedures (SOPs), and how effectively you involve your team will make a huge difference to how well it achieves this goal.
This secion includes templates for a SMP and for forms and checklists that could be used to make up part of your SOPs. A number of operators have also shared parts of their plans, to see the operators' examples go to the Operator's Forum.
Note: deciding what information goes where is addressed in the 'standard operating procedures and systems' section.
- Making the Commitment
- Involving the Team
- Deciding What it Should Cover
- Capturing the Detail
- Testing your Plan
- Keeping Track/Version Control
If this is your first written plan, or your existing plan needs a major re-write, it will help if you:
- Positively approach a process that will challenge your safety systems, and may show areas that need change
- Lead by example. Your positivity and openness will rub off on your team
- Prioritise the writing of your plan, but don’t lose touch with your staff and daily operation
- Be realistic about the amount of time this process will take. Plan and budget accordingly
It is likely that people in your team have experience and skills different to your own. Your plan will be better if you:
- Make sure they know the value of this process and the importance of their contribution
- Include them from the beginning of the writing process; including deciding what your plan should cover its style and structure
- Recognise those individuals with particular experience and skills, and give them responsibility for relevant parts of the plan
- Give your team time and space to provide input
- Honour their contributions i.e. as much as possible include their contributions, but if you can’t, be sure to tell them why
Determining what your plan should cover is often one of the biggest challenges. This can be helped by using the SMP Template, checking the adventure activities audit standard and:
- Knowing your legislative requirements - operators providing activities covered by the 'Adventure Activites Regulations 2011' are required to have an explicit drugs and alcohol policy
- Determining the specific activities and jobs within your operation e.g. driving, guiding or food handling
- Remembering to consider roles covered by people such as contractors, volunteers or trainees
- Considering the different locations where you undertake your activity
- Considering the seasons you operate e.g. winter and summer operating differences
- Thinking ahead: what may you be doing in the future?
- Looking at the approach taken by other operators
- Considering the headings and sub-headings within this safety guide as the basis for your plan
This plan is for you and your team. Too much detail will make it hard to use, too little and it will not give enough guidance to be useful. Your plan should:
- Describe what you will typically do; if you aren’t going to do it, don’t include it!
- Use language that works for you and your team
- Keep things clear and simple
- Avoid large blocks of text e.g. consider using bullet points, flow charts, photographs, videos, maps, etc
- Clearly differentiate your non-negotiable “must-do” procedures from those where you permit greater degrees of judgement and initiative. Policy and guidelines are terms often used, but there are many ways to show this.
- Use consistent words to describe your procedures
- Be as consistent as possible with format and style throughout the entire document e.g. consider using a computer style guide to help you
This section contains templates for a SMP and for forms and checlkists that could make up part of your SOPs.The templates show one way of doing things, but are not the only way of documenting your safety system. They will not cover every aspect of you operation, it is important to refer to the rest of this site to ensure you cover all safety topics.
You may want to use some elements of the templates and not others, or you may elect not to use it at all. The main thing is that your safety system reflects how your operation does things and works well for you and your team.
A Safety Management Plan (SMP) template has been produced in consultation with WorkSafe NZ. It is designed to help operators meet the requirements of the Health and Safety in Employment Adventure Activities Regulations 2011. It does not cover the safe operating procedures part of your safety system.
The template may be reviewed and updated from time to time, operators should check here to ensure they are using the most current version.The SMP template comes with a guidance document.
- Job Role Competence Checklist
- Trip Management Plan
- Trip report
- Staff Induction Form
- Staff Information Form
- Staff Safety Meeting Agenda
This stage is often overlooked. It is a key part of building a useful plan and should include:
- Testing your plan at every stage of writing – does your team understand it the way you do?
- Ensuring that your procedures are tested before you use them with clients. Staff training is a great opportunity for this
- Considering how your procedures will stand up to scrutiny in the event of a serious harm incident
Your plan needs to be current and accurate to be safe. In order to ensure this you should:
- Keep track of page numbers, file name, date of current version, next review dates and version numbers. Using footers can help with this
- Ensure that you know which is your current audited/approved version
- Ensure only current versions are in circulation
- Clearly show when your plan will next be reviewed – internally and externally
- State where your Safety Plan will be kept e.g. the master on your computer and the location of any hard copies
- Ensure you know how amendments to the plan will be made and tracked