A Year of Compliance: Start With The Quick Wins

Posted 42 days ago by Sarah Glover 7 Minute(s) to read

This year we’re intending to break the very large and unwieldy topic of compliance down into more digestible pieces—so bookmark our blog and keep coming back! The task of ensuring real compliance across the board is a big one and can be overwhelming. If you can commit to making and implementing one change per month, you’ll be on the right track without the overwhelm.

We’re starting with a look at why this is a good approach, how you can break the job down, and where to kick things off.

Slow and steady compliance updates are most effective

Tackling a small piece of the compliance puzzle each month might seem like dragging it out. There are many who would prefer to rip the bandaid off and do it all at once, but there are plenty of reasons to recommend the slow and steady approach over the “whole shebang” one.

It’s realistic. A complete review and overhaul of your compliance and health and safety systems is not likely to happen in a hurry, because it will require a very large chunk of time. Often, business owners assure themselves they will do this the next time they have an available block of time to set aside—and that block never comes.
Staying up to date with compliance is a compounding task by nature, rather than a completed one. It requires regular review and adjustment, so ticking it off your list in one big effort is not going to remove it entirely from your to-dos anyway.
It factors in human behaviour. A good system for updating compliance will factor in the human foibles we encounter when managing compliance: reasons, excuses, forgetfulness, and habit. You may have heard of habit stacking—we want to stack processes! We might remember to floss our teeth after we brush them if the floss is next to the toothbrush. What is our process trigger for updating a Competency Matrix? When we receive a training certificate or an invoice? Take things bit by bit and also build in habitual processes triggered by common events.

A lofty goal such as “overhaul all of our policies within a week” is the type of to-do item that will have many business owners avoiding the task altogether. Sticking your head in the sand can result in ad-hoc, unplanned changes and updates when it becomes absolutely necessary.

Compliance plan of attack: stay ahead of the game

How can you stay on top of your compliance requirements (whatever those may be) in a slow, steady, bit-by-bit fashion? These are our top tips:

Schedule with abandon

While we highly recommend an electronic calendar for its automated reminders and editability, we know there are some people who swear by a physical book. However you choose to keep a calendar, use it to manage routine tasks. Checks, reviews, register updates, and anything else that happens regularly should go into the calendar. Set aside time for these things and they are more likely to happen—it’s like magic!

Learn from past mistakes

Or just past experiences! Consider what was a pain and what slipped through the cracks the year before. Prioritise these things, and schedule them into your calendar. Trigger inspections before a meeting, if that was something that you had difficulty staying on top of in years previous. Being aware of the ways in which you have fallen behind makes it easier to do better and avoid the consequences catching up with you.

Focus on one aspect at a time

How much time can you set aside in one month? Probably not enough for a complete overhaul of your compliance policies, procedures, and documentation. But maybe enough for one section of it?

Our top tip for staying organised and compliant in 2024 is to break it down and tackle one section at a time throughout the year. Here are our suggestions for a potential breakdown of topics (and we’ll be diving into each one in further detail as the year progresses):

Roles and responsibilities. Nail down your job descriptions and ensure they match up with the realities of the roles.
Map out core tasks, ensuring that all documents match up with how these tasks are carried out.
Review risks, consider how new risks are identified and how controls are decided, implemented, managed and checked.
Drills and site checks. Not just fire! How do we know our workspaces (office, warehouse, sites or remote working areas) are safe day-to-day and in the event of an emergency?
Emergency response planning. What happens in the event of these (not just fire) emergencies? Who does what, when, and how? What emergency situations could arise directly from our activities?
Event reporting and management. It doesn’t go to plan, there’s damage, or worse, someone gets hurt. Now what? How do we capture learnings, make improvements, and close these out (Directors beware: not closing out should be high on your governance risks)?
Competency and induction. How do we do what we do properly, consistently, and well? If it’s all of these things, it’s safe.
Equipment checks. Faulty equipment is a disaster waiting to happen, and this is true from a safety perspective, but equipment failure can also be hard on your bottom line. Take the time for a thorough check of it all.
Corrective action and change management. How are we making sure we do what we say we’re doing? When we need to make a change, how do we make sure it’s relevant and working?
Communication and worker engagement. This isn’t fluff; it’s a legal requirement. Done well, it makes the biggest impact toward optimal operations. How do we check everyone is informed and on the same page?
Policy backfill. Here we’re using our earlier work to inform our overall management system.
Audit/self-assessment or prequal. Is what we’ve implemented working? What key data can we use to inform future decisions and predict better safety outcomes? Importantly, how are we going to make sure all of this work is recognised?

The first task: quick wins

The first task is to put it all out there on paper. Download the brains of all those with a stake in the compliance game, and look honestly at areas that genuinely need a good going over. Celebrate the wins you are having. Most importantly—decide where your energy is best used first.

We call this looking for the “quick wins”. What can you tweak slightly for much better results? What is in dire need of attention, which will contribute heavily to a more compliance workplace when it is in order? Triage potential tasks according to where your energy will have the most positive effect, and don;t feel bad about putting the rest aside for later.

Here are a few things to consider as you work through and seek quick wins:

What documents or processes DO you have, which are current, implemented, and actively in place (i.e you can give a completed process evidence to a Worksafe Inspector in less than 15 mins)?
Rank your existing processes according to how confident you are with them. Use happy/sad faces, ticks/crosses/question marks, marks out of 10—whatever works. Get an idea of where work is needed the most.
If you are super new to safety, start with the key things: Do you have a 2023 or 2024 signed policy? How do we know how to do the work we do? Who is responsible for what? We think something could go sideways with the new piece of equipment; how do we stop that from happening? What happens when it actually does go sideways? Importantly, how do we celebrate when it goes swimmingly?
Talk things through in plain language. You might even have a laugh here or there, not because safety is a joke but because when it’s done well it isn’t all clipboards and TRIFRs (or any other confusing acronym). Safety is about people working with people, all of us working together with the best of collective knowledge and a large dose of common sense. With a bit of good structure and consistency, we can all go home safe. With a labour market like the current one, you need your people turning up intact tomorrow!

Follow along on our blog this year as we expand on each of the areas we mentioned above, offering advice and insight that will have you finish the year with your compliance and health and safety systems in top shape.

For help with any of these aspects of compliance and more, get in touch with the Emendas team!