Internal control – 8 requirements for systematic HSE work

Download the checklist and internal audit guide

The purpose of internal control is to promote improvement work in the businesses in Norway. Simply put, you can say that the regulation is a detailed explanation of how a law must be followed and implemented.

It may be a challenge for many to satisfy the requirements of the regulation. A regulation is otherwise a legally binding regulation based on laws. 

The internal control regulation is a regulation of the HSE legislation. The regulation tells concretely what internal control entails and what requirements are set, and it sets requirements for prevention through improvement.

To help you and your business, we give you 11 tips to get you started when choosing a quality system.

Internal control must ensure that the company's routines and systems function optimally, and must capture any problems and challenges that arise. Internal control is systematic (regular and planned) measures to ensure that the company's activities are in accordance with HSE legislation.

Some would call this a management system, and therefore the leadership role becomes important ahead of the acquisition of a quality system.

To help you and your business, we give you 11 tips to get you started when choosing a quality system.

There are 8 requirements for the HSE work and of these, 5 must be documented. Documentation can, for example, be procedures, instructions, permits, certificates of competence, certificates, recorded incidents, carried out risk assessments, process layouts with responsible persons, etc.

The business must ensure that the laws and regulations in health, environmental and safety legislation that apply to the business are available, and have an overview of the requirements that are of particular importance to the business.

This can easily be solved with a module in document management . There you can create links that point directly to Lovdata and the Norwegian Labor Inspection Authority.

The business must ensure that the employees have sufficient knowledge and skills in systematic health, environmental and safety work, including information about changes.

Enter updated information about HSE in the document module of TQM Enterprise. You can also enter a training plan in the same module. When there is a change to important HSE information, you can request a reading confirmation from all employees. Employees are then notified on the phone and by e-mail that they must confirm that they have read and understood the new changes.

The business must ensure that the employees contribute so that combined knowledge and experience is utilized.

Through staff meetings and HSE meetings, all employees are involved in HSE work and improvement work. Meetings can be planned in the Activity Planner module. Employees will also contribute when they submit improvement proposals and deviations via the Incident Management module.

The business must set targets for health, environment and safety.

It is only natural that the management itself participates in the HSE work, at the same time that sufficient resources are allocated. HSE strategy, goals and visions should be included directly in the organisation's management strategy. The HSE objectives should therefore be credible, concrete, measurable and achievable.
The HSE targets are entered in the document module in TQM Enterprise.

When the processes are drawn up in TQM Enterprise, it has been shown who is responsible for which process. It is also a good idea to add an organization chart to the document module. It is possible to easily be presented with a list of the division of responsibilities in the business.

Safeguards can be documented with Checklists in TQM Enterprise. Risk assessments can be documented with a module in risk management .

With the Incident Management module, you can report incidents such as e.g. deviations and observations. This can also be done easily with the TQM APP on the phone. In many cases, measures such as action plans are created. Among other things, measures help to improve HSE work, procedures and processes.

With the activity management module, you can enter times for when you want a review of the internal control. It can be an internal audit or management's review.

With the Checklist module, you can easily have checklists to be filled in to document the review.

It is the manager's responsibility that the internal control regulations are followed, and it is the employees' responsibility to contribute. In short, the point of the regulation is to set requirements for prevention through continuous improvement work. The internal control must be adapted to each organization in scope and design, but remember that the requirements are the same.

Good luck with your work!

You can also download a checklist and guide to internal auditing here