Management of Change (MOC) and incident reporting are two vital and intertwined processes that every company should understand. One of the most hazardous situations faced by any industry is the process of changing procedures, equipment, leadership, or even facilities. Change brings hazards and new challenges, so it is essential to manage these changes with professionalism and safety in mind.

The management of change (MOC) process needs to address the many issues that arise when an organization evolves somehow. And including a robust incident reporting regiment in the MOC process makes implementing new practices and procedures much easier and safer for your team members.

What is Management Of Change And When Is It Required

Management of Change (MOC) refers to administering and directing the implementation of new procedures in response to situational differences occurring in a workplace. 

In other words, we are managing a change at work; and it is essential to complete the process with safety and due diligence in mind.

When MOC Procedures Are Critical

Depending on your industry and the country your organization or business operates, you may not find you are legislatively required to provide MOC documentation to authorities. However, MOC documentation and process are vital to maintaining regulatory compliance in several industry situations. 

One such vital instance to incorporate a MOC is the management of highly hazardous chemicals. Multiple industries, from chemical fabrication to manufacturing, will face situations where a MOC is necessary. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, in 2020, there were 672 fatalities in the workplace due to exposure to harmful regulated substances or environments.

In order to ensure you are on the right side of the law, it is best to perform MOC procedures on any change that might induce a dangerous situation.

Implementing a MOC analysis procedure to changes within your organization is wise to determine the validity of a required MOC process. However, adopting a standardized management procedure for organizational changes is critical to increasing team members‘ safety and maintaining regulatory obligations.

Below, we’ll discuss some of the prominent and more obscure situations you may want to consider when implementing MOC processes.

Procedural Changes

Within any business or organization, team members become accustomed to standard procedures. For this reason, we advise performing regular safety refresher programs to keep staff complacency from overwhelming protocol. Similarly, we must retrain team members to comply with new in-house procedures when procedures change. Some of the procedural changes that should consider the use of a MOC protocol are:

• Operational changes
• Safety inspection changes
• Quality control changes
• Role and responsibility changes
• Changes to required team member training

Facility Changes

Facility changes constitute a significant hazard generator. Depending on the scale of the shift, facility changes might even include active construction or renovation processes while maintaining a daily working environment.

Examples of facility changes that might warrant a MOC process include, but are not limited to the following:

• Renovations
• Additions
• Construction
• Merger

The above list has three items that are somewhat obvious as to the expected hazards associated with a changing work environment. However prominent tools and construction are to workers, we still need to manage how the construction/renovation/addition to facilities will disrupt regular team member roles. But we should consider the final item on the list for a moment as well, and that is mergers.

When we merge within a business or organization, we might be doing any number of actions. The most common is downsizing and incorporating roles and responsibilities. Similarly, it might be the blending of two departments within an organization.

Equipment Changes

Equipment changes are a significant reason to consider a robust MOC process within your company. Your company equipment is a substantial source of hazard for team members, with 1778 fatalities relating directly to vehicles and equipment for workers in 2020 in the U.S. alone. (Source: USDL)

Some examples of equipment-based situations that warrant a MOC procedure might include:

• New equipment
• Modified equipment
• Safety protocol or legislative changes to equipment or vehicle regulations

Regulatory Changes

Regulatory changes are a necessary MOC situation within workplaces. Legislative and regulatory changes that require new or updated team member training are essential for managers to be aware of and understand. Furthermore, communicating and training staff in new regulations is critical to any management training plan to maintain their due diligence regarding team member safety.

MOC Regulatory References

Having some quick references to your countries MOC regulatory bodies is something that we hope you’ll find helpful. Here are a few countries where searches regularly occur for MOC-type issues.

Most governments focus on MOC in terms of legislated requirements for chemical hazards. Predominantly environmental spills and other concerns seem to take precedence pertaining to MOC protocol. However, businesses of all types should implement the MOC systematic process for any hazard-creating change within their workplace or organization.

Following, you’ll find some of the regulatory bodies concerned with or have regulations pertaining to the Management of Change.

Australia

Government of Australia – Business Division

Government of Australia – Department of Agriculture, Water, And The Environment

Canada

Canadian Centre For Occupational Health And Safety

Government of Canada – Public Safety Canada

The United States of America

The Occupational Health And Safety Administration

The United States Environmental Protection Agency

The United Kingdom

The Health And Safety Executive – Control of Major Accident Hazards program

How To Manage The Challenges And Risks Of Change

Identifying and implementing change within an organization is often an undertaking unto itself. However, we must not lose sight of the safety of team members and the environment. With this in mind, implementing a straightforward procedure for managing change within your facility and job sites becomes essential to manage the challenges and risks that change brings.

Examples Of Challenges Faced By Change In Organizations And Business

There are a near-infinite amount of possible challenges that businesses and organizations may face when dealing with change. Some of these challenges pose new hazards to team members that must be addressed. Here are a few examples of what organizations might face when dealing with these change issues.

• New fall hazards presented by construction, renovations, or additions
• Training processes need revitalization due to new procedures
• Operation manuals need revision from changes in protocol
• Equipment may require modification to safety components to suit new regulations

As you can well imagine, there are a vast amount of concerns and challenges that businesses and organizations must contend with when facing change. These could be anything from training to logistical issues or even fiscal issues if a small business must lose labor to new regulated training practices.

Aside from the many managerial, logistical, or organizational challenges that may arise from a change at work, some new risks and hazards may present themselves when change occurs.

Examples of Risks Of Change In Organizations And Business

Change brings challenges, but it also can bring the risk of increased hazards. For this reason, hazard awareness is critical when implementing something new. It’s the part of the process that needs someone to sit down and analyze the possible scenarios that might develop during and after a change is implemented. Here are a few risks that could potentially arise from changing systems:

• New vehicular pedestrian risk due to change in traffic laneway
• Team member risk due to a change in workplace equipment
• Fall hazard due to open construction areas due to facility renovations
• Exposure risk due to new chemical compound use within the facility

Identifying risks and threats is essential to a successful MOC procedure. Using tools like the following templates can help you save time and money when implementing a MOC procedure.

Risk And Hazard Reporting Forms And Templates

• Risk Assessment Form
• Job Hazard Analysis Checklist
• Site Condition Report Template
• Dangerous Situation Report Form
• Safety Leading Indicator Tracking Form

Take a look at our downloadable template library for even more forms, checklists, and templates. Further to your management of the change process, tools are vital, but the concept is essential. That is the concept of hazard recognition and analysis.

You can also use our resources to aid in team member training. Our article, How To Write An Incident Report in 11 Steps, is quite helpful for team member training, so don’t miss it and set a bookmark.

Hazard Analysis And Incident Reporting – Critical To The MOC

The primary concept driving the MOC process is hazard recognition and incident prevention. If implementing a change within your organization, understanding how to manage hazard identification effectively and reporting is critical to a safe and effective changeover. 

Several generic and specific safety considerations exist for each change situation within organizations and businesses. Due to this variety in potential safety considerations, it is improbable that a particular set of rules for MOC implementation will suffice. However, we’ve put together the following general guidelines about how one might best pursue MOC implementation to properly and effectively manage change at work.

MOC Implementation Guide

General Steps To The MOC Process

Depending on the exact nature of your industry and that of the change you intend to implement, there may be variations to the precise MOC process you choose to follow. However, there are eight steps to an effective and safe MOC procedure.

1. Recognize Change Requirements
2. Identify Hazards and Risks
3. Determine Feasibility
4. Draft Change Outline
5. Train Team Members
6. Perform Facility Safety Audit
7. Implement Change
8. Document Feedback

Let’s take a closer look at each of these steps to define the specifics of each stage.

Recognize Change Requirements

When change is required, we need to start by developing a plan. This plan requires understanding the nature and extent of the transition to be initiated. Recognizing the requirements of the change and noting these requirements is vital in understanding any complexities behind who and what processes these changes will affect.

Identify Hazards and Risks

Further to the change requirements, we must next identify all potential hazards realized by the change event when creating our MOC plan. Specific hazards might become relevant when previously there were none. Similarly, low-risk threats might become a higher risk, so a complete analysis of all potential hazards created or modified by said change is absolutely essential.

Determine Feasibility

By the time you arrive at this stage of the MOC process, you ought to have a rough idea drafted of the change requirements and the hazards created or modified by the change. These factors allow one to determine now the actual feasibility of change implementation within your operations. If the risks are too significant to control, it might be time to rethink the change implementation strategy.

Draft Change Outline

Assuming that you can control the hazards presented by the change, we move into the first draft of our change outline. Some also refer to the outline as the change procedures. You can easily convert these change procedures into a checklist or similar template using a mobile form automation solution like the 1st Reporting app (available on Google Play and The Apple App Store). 

Train Team Members

Safety training is the backbone of organizational team member safety. Some would have you implement the change and then train staff. This path is one to accidents. The more appropriate solution is to train staff before implementing change. By preemptively introducing team members to changes within the workplace, you are enabling a safer and smoother transition than springing a change upon team members before training them on the new protocol.

Perform Facility Safety Audit

Assuming that you have completed the initial hazard analysis, you should already have a pretty good idea about the safety requirements surrounding the change event. However, performing an official facility safety audit before change implementation is always wise. 

By cross-referencing your initial hazard assessment with a complete facility safety audit, sometimes you can find new hazard potentials that were previously in obscurity. It increases your chances of maintaining a safe and smooth change transition.

Implement Change

The seventh step to the MOC process is implementing the change itself. We have created a plan, drafted it, analyzed the dangers, trained staff, and completed a final safety audit and analysis. It’s time to safely implement the change, following all-new safety procedures relative to the change event and onward.

Document Feedback

During the transition and post-transition, it is advisable to document any feedback and observations regarding the change process and repercussions of said change event. By recording observations and input from team members and others affected by the change, you can innovate new and potentially even safer practices into the process within your organization.

What To Include In Your MOC Procedure

If you skipped ahead to this point, we advise that you jump back to the steps of the MOC and give that a quick read. Otherwise, let’s continue with the stages and what is included.

Earlier, we noted that we must include in the MOC:

• Change requirements
• New and modified hazards
• Plan to implement change and the steps involved

However, there are some general guidelines for including other vital information. The additional information we’re talking about is as follows:

• Reason for the required change
• Technical information about the change (particular to equipment changes but may also be relevant elsewhere)
• Impacts on team member health and safety
• Procedures to mitigate hazards created or modified
• Techniques to maintain safe operations amid the change event
• An approximate timeline for the change event transition
• Team member training requirements
• Authorized parties managing the change

Industry-Specific MOC Guidelines

As mentioned briefly earlier, there are specific industries where many countries include legislation to govern the MOC process and its requirements. These industries typically have regular working requirements that involve team members with potential exposure or explosive danger situations.

The following industries and businesses have MOC-regulated requirements if they work with:

• Hazardous chemicals
• Explosives
• Petrochemicals
• Pharmaceuticals

Each of these has one thing in common, and it has to do with the materials used in the industry. Each uses dangerous, hazardous, flammable, or explosive chemicals or materials. When there is an explosion risk, exposure risk, or other severe threat hazard involved in daily operations, generally speaking, there will be regulations regarding required MOC procedures. Consult your government authorities to ensure you have the appropriate process and documentation in place if you aren’t sure.

The OSHA regulates MOC required documentation practices for industry. You can read the specifics here on the OSHA site, standard number 1910.119.

Tools And Resources For Easier MOC Implementation

Implementing new or temporary controls and policies addressing hazards created by changing conditions is easier when you have the right tools. 

Standardized Templates

We mentioned earlier how utilizing templates for safety audits, and hazard identification makes the process more efficient. Similarly, you can create your custom templates to suit your particular company brand or specific equipment use, et cetera.

Incident Reporting Software

One tool that organizations are finding indispensable is a robust incident reporting platform. An incident reporting platform like 1st Incident Reporting can help your business streamline incident report creation, sharing and even add customized notifications to the process.

Mobile Form Automation Software

Beyond incident reporting, it is crucial to recognize, analyze, and respond to hazards created by the change event process itself when managing change. Sometimes organizations have complex safety protocols, and that complexity lends a hand to mistakes when they are needed least.

In order to correct the possibility of losing steps within a complex process, many companies are turning to mobile form automation software to bridge the gap. Using digital checklists on team members’ intelligent devices makes complex procedures simple for even your remote working staff.

How Your Organization Can Benefit From A Successful MOC Process

Change within any business or organization can spell disaster for unprepared people. This truth is apparent when we review statistics for severe injuries and death at the workplace. Commonly, the youngest workers experience the most lost time accidents due to injury. 

The introduction of MOC processes helps organizations eliminate unnecessary risks by addressing hazards exposed by change events. You can mitigate these hazards via a series of control and safety measures. The entire process is managed according to the MOC policy regarding the change event.

Standardization of MOC procedures via standard templates and similar tools helps organizations increase safety awareness efficiently. 

This awareness of hazards increases via the standardized training protocol that your organization can implement. Utilizing standard hazard awareness and incident reporting templates allows you to use the same training for all your team members regarding the process documentation. Uniformity allows for innovation, efficient training processes, and branded standardization showing organizational due diligence.

Top 3 Tips For Industry MOC Process Adoption

Let’s sum things up. When the change involves any hazard, it is best practice to implement a MOC procedure. Even in non-regulated MOC conditions, it is best to follow a standardized process for developing MOC safe practices.

Upon completing this guide, we should understand that certain practices and things help you implement change in your organization easier and more efficiently. Let’s look at the top three tips to help you adopt a robust yet efficient MOC protocol.

1. Recognize, Analyze, And Assess Risk Is The Priority
2. Implement Standardized Training And Templates
3. Use A Mobile Form Automation Solution

Recognize, Analyze, And Assess Risk Is The Priority

This tip could very well read merely as Prioritize. It is one of the essential tips for a MOC process. The entire point of the MOC is to keep team members safe in a safe environment while creating as smooth a transition as possible. It is only possible to prioritize safety and nothing else during the transition process.

Implement Standardized Training And Templates

Utilizing standardized practices and tools helps organizations like yours in several ways. First, it allows for formal training that your team can create once and deliver to all. There’s no need for individualized custom training for each team member when you have a standardized solution.

Similarly, utilizing a standardized reporting template or form for your team members for various safety auditing or procedural duties checklists allows for more accessible communication within the organization. This increased communication comes from all staff holding awareness of the templates used by all. It makes communications faster and more effective.

Use A Mobile Form Automation Solution

Whether you are more interested in an incident reporting platform or a mobile reporting solution, using a mobile form automation platform makes the MOC process that much easier. Similarly, these types of cloud-based software make day-to-day reporting, auditing, inspecting, and other similar functions efficient and straightforward. 

Retrieval of information is simple with a robust mobile form automation solution like the 1st Reporting app. All documentation is stored in the cloud. Anyone you designate within the platform can easily retrieve the desired reports from anywhere with a data connection.

With even more features like multi-platform compatibility, offline report saves, and automated customized notifications, it’s no wonder why so many are choosing 1st Reporting to help in not only their MOC procedures but also in all business inspecting, reporting, and digital documentation processes.

Read more here for more information about how our application can help your organization.