How I Use the Safe Systems of Work Template with Customers in Pilla
Safe systems of work are where risk assessments stop being theoretical and start protecting people. I've reviewed health and safety management systems across hundreds of businesses, and the pattern is familiar: the risk assessment exists, it identifies a high-risk task, and then nothing happens. No written procedure, no step-by-step method, no clear instructions for the person actually doing the job. The gap between identifying a hazard and controlling it is where most serious injuries occur.
That's what this article is about. I'll walk you through what a safe systems of work policy needs to cover, give you a ready-made template you can edit for your own operation, and explain what actually matters when an HSE inspector asks to see how you manage high-risk tasks.
Key Takeaways
- What are safe systems of work in health and safety? A safe system of work is a documented, step-by-step method for carrying out a high-risk task safely. It flows directly from your risk assessments and tells employees exactly how to do a hazardous job without getting hurt
- Why do you need a safe systems of work policy? Section 2(2)(a) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 requires employers to provide and maintain safe systems of work. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 reinforce this with duties around risk assessment, clear instructions, and training for hazardous tasks
- How do you set it up in Pilla? Use the knowledge hub template below, edit it to match your operation, and share it with your team through the app so everyone has access and you can track who's read it
- How do you automate the follow-up? Set up Poppi to chase staff who haven't acknowledged the policy and flag when it's due for review
Article Content
Understanding What's Required of You
A safe system of work is a formal procedure for carrying out a task that your risk assessment has identified as high risk. It breaks the task down into steps, identifies the hazards at each step, and specifies the controls. It's the bridge between your risk assessment saying "this is dangerous" and your employees knowing exactly how to do it safely.
The legal duty is clear. Section 2(2)(a) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 requires every employer to provide and maintain systems of work that are, so far as is reasonably practicable, safe and without risks to health. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 build on this with specific duties around risk assessment, competent persons, and providing employees with clear instructions and training for hazardous tasks.
Safe systems of work sit at a specific point in the hierarchy of controls. You only reach them when you've already considered elimination, substitution, and engineering controls, and there's still residual risk that needs managing. I worked with a fabrication shop in Birmingham where they'd done a thorough risk assessment for hot work but had nothing written down for the welders to follow. The risk assessment said "significant risk of burns and fire." The welders just did what they'd always done. That's a gap an HSE inspector will find in about thirty seconds.
What an HSE inspector looks for is straightforward. They want to see that you've identified which tasks need safe systems of work, that you've written them down, that employees have been trained on them, and that you monitor whether people actually follow them. A folder full of procedures that nobody reads is not compliance. It's decoration.
The tasks that usually need a safe system of work include anything involving working at height, confined space entry, hot work, electrical work, work with hazardous substances, and any task where the consequences of getting it wrong are severe. But the list is specific to your operation. A hotel kitchen has different high-risk tasks to a construction site. Your risk assessments tell you where you need them.
Setting It Up as a Knowledge Hub Entry
I've built a safe systems of work template in Pilla covering the duty to provide safe systems, how to identify where they're needed, task assessment, documenting and displaying procedures, training, stakeholder involvement, review, and monitoring compliance. It gives you a structured starting point, but you need to make it yours.
In the knowledge hub, create a new entry and tag it with "Health and Safety System". Use the same tag across all of your health and safety policies so they are grouped together and Poppi can track them as a set. Assign the entry to all teams so that everyone in the business can access it.
The template is designed to be edited, not just filed. Read through every section and replace the generic content with what actually happens in your business. If you have specific high-risk tasks that need safe systems, name them. If you've already developed procedures for certain tasks, reference them. The HSE inspector wants to see that your policy reflects your operation, not that you've downloaded a template and left it untouched.
20. Safe Systems of Work
Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999
Company Name have a duty to ensure our workforce are provided with clear instructions and training when undertaking potentially hazardous tasks that pose significant risks.
We use the experience from operating these arrangements to make improvements to our safety, health and welfare management system.
Where the risk assessments for work activities identify residual high-risk situations, written safe systems of work shall be provided.
To ensure that adequate Safe Systems of Work are in place for employees to follow we need to;
*Responsible Persons to appoint and train sufficient numbers of staff in the creation of the Safe System of Work.
Systematically identify the areas where a Safe System of Work may be required.
Assess the task and identify the hazards.
Define the safe method of undertaking the task.
Document the Safe System of Work and ideally display it at the work site where the work takes place.
Implement the System and ensure employees understand it. Provide training where necessary.
When developing and implementing Safe Systems of Work we involve senior management and workers in the task being assessed.
Review Safe Systems of Work on a regular basis to monitor their effectiveness or when situations change.
Monitor activities which have been assigned a Safe System of Work to ensure employees are following the documented procedures.
*Responsible Persons identified on the House Responsibility Chart section of the Health & safety Policy
This is a preview of the template. In Pilla, you can edit this to match your business.
What I'd want to see when reviewing this:
The most important part is the link between your risk assessments and your safe systems of work. I'd want to see that you can point to specific risk assessments that identified the need for each safe system, and that the safe system addresses the hazards the risk assessment found. A safe system of work that doesn't trace back to a risk assessment is guesswork. A risk assessment that identifies high risk without producing a safe system is incomplete.
The section on identifying where systems are required needs to be specific to your operation. Don't just say "we systematically identify areas where safe systems may be required." List the tasks. Name them. If you run a warehouse, that might be forklift operations, racking inspections, and loading bay procedures. If you run a restaurant, it might be deep fat fryer cleaning, cellar gas changes, and knife handling for new starters.
Common mistakes I see:
The biggest one is writing safe systems of work from a desk without involving the people who actually do the task. I've read procedures that describe a method nobody uses because the person who wrote it has never done the job. The template says to involve senior management and workers in the task being assessed. That's not a suggestion. The people doing the work know where the real hazards are, and a procedure they helped write is one they're far more likely to follow.
The second is documentation without display. The template says to document the safe system and ideally display it at the work site. I still walk into businesses where the procedures are in a folder in the manager's office. If the person doing the task can't see the instructions while they're doing it, the system isn't working. A laminated sheet at the point of work is worth more than a ring binder nobody opens.
The third is treating review as optional. The template requires regular review and review when situations change. I've seen safe systems of work that reference equipment the business sold two years ago. If you change a process, change a piece of equipment, or have an incident, the safe system needs updating. Writing it once and forgetting it is worse than not having one at all, because it creates a false sense of compliance.
Automate the Follow-Up with Poppi
Writing the policy is one thing. Making sure your team has actually read it is another. Poppi can handle the chasing so you don't have to.
If you mark the knowledge hub entry as mandatory, Poppi will track who's read it and who hasn't. You can set up automations to chase staff who are behind, notify managers when someone completes the policy, and get a regular report showing where the gaps are.
Here are three automations I'd set up for any knowledge hub policy:
Tom, you have 2 overdue policies to read and acknowledge
Overdue training reminders
Automatically chase team members who have mandatory policies they haven't read yet. Poppi sends the reminder so you don't have to.
Tom, you have 2 overdue policies to read and acknowledge
Emma has completed a mandatory policy
Video completion alerts
Get notified when a team member finishes reading or watching a policy, so you can track progress without chasing.
Emma has completed a mandatory policy
Training Report: 87% team completion. Tom and Sarah behind on 2 mandatory policies, due 3 days ago.
Training gap analysis
Get a regular AI report showing which team members are behind on mandatory policies and where the gaps are across your team.
Training Report: 87% team completion. Tom and Sarah behind on 2 mandatory policies, due 3 days ago.