Creating a Safety & Health Program for Your Worksite
Posted April 7th, 2011
Following OSHA guidelines is the easiest way to create and implement a safety and health program for your worksite. OSHA recommends that your safety and health program contains four basic elements:
• Management Leadership and Employee Involvement
• Worksite Analysis
• Hazard Prevention and Control
• Training
Management Leadership and Employee Involvement
If you are a member of management:
• Commit the necessary resources of staff, money, and time to ensure that everyone on a worksite is protected from injury and illness hazards.
• Lead in the design, implementation, and continuous improvement of the site’s safety and health activities.
• Work with all management levels, with input from hourly employees, to develop an annual safety and health goal, including objectives and action plans to reach that goal.
• Evaluate, at year’s end, whether the action plans, objectives, and annual goals were met.
• Include clearly written safety and health responsibilities in all employees’ job descriptions. All performance evaluations should include a written assessment of the execution of assigned safety and health responsibilities.
• Make sure all visitors to the site, including contract and temporary labor, co-op students, interns, vendors, and sales people, have knowledge of site hazards and how to protect themselves against those hazards, including emergency alarms and procedures
• Allow employees to become involved in safety and health decision making and problem solving: committees and ad hoc problem solving groups, acting as safety observers, assisting in training other employees, analyzing hazards inherent in site jobs, writing JHAs, and planning activities to heighten safety and health awareness.
Worksite Analysis:
• Hire outside consultants as necessary to conduct baseline surveys that identify all safety and health hazards at your site.
• Eliminate or control all hazards found during these surveys and train all employees who may encounter the controlled hazards to protect themselves.
• Establish change procedures to follow whenever the site experiences changes in equipment, material, or processes.
• Work with all employees to analyze safety and health hazards inherent in each job site, find means to eliminate those hazards whenever possible, and plan how to protect people against them.
• Train all employees on the site to recognize hazards and to report any hazard they find as soon as possible.
• Organize a monthly site inspection team to provide site inspection and first aid incident reports.
Hazard Prevention and Control:
• Ensure that hazards will be eliminated when economically feasible, that protections such as machine guards and personal protective equipment (PPE) are in place, and that employee exposure to hazards is controlled through frequent breaks and job rotation.
• Make sure that the worksite and all machinery is cared for properly to maintain a safe, healthy work environment.
• Hold all employees, including management, accountable for obeying site safety and health rules. Create and implement a disciplinary policy that will apply to everyone.
• Work with appropriate outside agencies, such as the fire department, police department, and hospitals to write emergency plans for all potential emergencies, including fire, explosion, accidents, severe weather, loss of power and/or water, and violence from an outside source.
• Perform regular drills on each type of emergency at least once a year. Conduct a total site evacuation drill, with all work shut down, and coordinated with the appropriate agency, once a year.
• Maintain a proactive occupational health program that includes input from occupational health professionals and have certified industrial hygienists conduct periodic air and noise monitoring.
Training:
Employee involvement in the site’s safety and health program can only be successful when everyone receives sufficient training. Employees must understand what their safety and health responsibilities are and how to fulfill them. Training is a high priority to ensure a safe and healthy workplace. Finding time and knowledgeable personnel to do effective training is vital. Each year, evaluate that year’s training efforts to look for methods of improvement. Management is responsible for ensuring that all training offered at the site is conducted by qualified professionals.
Bayside Solutions can help you find the qualified professionals you need. To find out more, contact us today!
