While the overall number of work-related health and safety incidents is trending downward, U.S. businesses still spend more than $170 billion a year on costs associated with occupational injuries and illnesses. OSHA estimates that an effective, up-to-date workplace safety plan can reduce an organization’s injury and illness costs by an incredible 20 to 40 percent. However, this goal is only achievable if your business is committed to giving its safety program the resources and attention it needs to be effective.
At any organization, it’s not enough to simply have a workplace safety program in place. You must regularly revisit the program by performing annual audits. This important step will help to ensure that specific safety and health initiatives are being administered as expected throughout the organization.
Auditing Your Program
Luckily, auditing your workplace safety program does not have to be an overly complicated process. In just four steps, you can have a good idea of where your program stands:
Step 1: Assess management, leadership, and employee involvement.
Visit with each department in the organization to get a feel for whether people are actually invested in the workplace safety program. Ask the following questions:
- Is the workplace safety plan effectively communicated to all employees?
- Are managers/leaders enforcing the program?
- Are all employees following health and safety guidelines?
- Are managers/leaders performing regular inspections?
For a safety plan to be effective, both the employer and the employees must be involved. During your audit, assess whether your managers and leaders are personally committed to safety, because their attitude about it can affect the overall culture of the organization. If you get a sense that people are not invested in safety, it can also be helpful to include all employees in making and updating your workplace safety plan, as they are the ones who most often use it.
Step 2: Analyze worksite and hazard prevention/control efforts.
As the next stage of the audit, consider how well the program is actually accounting for health and safety hazards. Ask the following questions:
- Does the plan include all potential hazards?
- Since the program was implemented, has there been a measurable decrease in worker compensation costs, employee sick days or injuries, or some other metric?
- Do your current efforts ensure that all OSHA and industry-specific regulations are being met?
- Does your program enable quick and streamlined incident reporting to help contain problems?
- Does your program include methods for effective communication during and following an incident?
Step 3: Revisit health and safety training and education protocol.
Next, review how employees at all levels are trained (and retrained) on workplace safety. Ask the following questions:
- Are new employees immediately trained on workplace safety?
- Are managers, leaders, and employees retrained often enough to ensure that the program is effective?
- If the workplace safety plan is updated, is there a way to distribute those updates to everyone?
Step 4: Assess your workplace safety plan.
Finally, consider whether your workplace safety plan is actually achieving its purpose. Ask the following questions:
- Is the plan up to date?
- Is the plan easily accessible by all employees, including management and leadership?
- Can your people easily activate the plan?
Organizations that are well prepared for health and safety incidents treat their workplace safety plans as living documents. These plans should be re-examined closely and regularly to ensure that they are up to date and relevant. When changes occur—for example, as employees leave or join the company or when new protocols or regulations are instituted—you and your team should immediately update the plan recipients and ensure all employees receive it.
In addition, the plan should be readily accessible at any time and from any location. Storing such an important document in someone’s office or on the corporate intranet presents some significant problems. For instance, consider how much time would be wasted if an employee in the field had to rush to the office or a computer to find information on how to handle a chemical spill or injury.
Limited accessibility also affects how quickly your plan can be activated. Health and safety incidents can escalate quickly, and employees must be able to immediately access the information they need and contact the appropriate people.
Modernizing Workplace Safety
If your audit reveals that your safety plan is not achieving its goals, it’s important to fix the issues now, before the next health- or safety-related incident occurs.
To achieve a more effective workplace safety program, many organizations are adopting a mobile crisis management solution that provides incident reporting and real-time communication capabilities, as well as convenient access to safety procedures, right on employees’ mobile phones. This ensures that vital workplace safety information, incident checklists, and contact details are available from any location, with the touch of a button, which makes health and safety an easier, more integrated part of every employee’s workday.
