Safety program management

Once you know your safety goals and understand your unique business risks, you can develop a program that works for you. Your safety program should comply with OSHA regulations, and and it helps to use the agency's best practice recommendations. OSHA asserts that health and safety programs should include these seven interrelated core elements:. Industries like construction and manufacturing with higher than average safety risks and heavy-duty equipment require specific additional training.

Companies that fail to comply with the standards can be cited and fined by OSHA. Employers who do more than meet these standards reap some of the most financially rewarding benefits of comprehensive training, such as:. Proactive safety training reduces workplace accidents, so it not only protects employees from injuries, but also protects the company from the related lost time and diminished productivity.

Fewer accidents and injuries result in paying fewer claims, and good safety ratings also mean lower premiums. It improves performance and productivity. Our materials, resources and tools are built with you in mind. We send regular compliance updates explaining changes in regulations that impact your operation so you can make informed business decisions.

Plus, our staff attorney is available to help you understand complex nuances of legislation. Our in-house safety specialist is happy to consult with you on specific safety issues and offer solutions that best fit your needs, and McCloneHR is standing by to provide assistance with employee relations.

Offering so much more than broad network access to insurance carriers and policy negotiations, the McClone team has got you covered for workers' compensation. When you partner with McClone, you hire a team that fully supports your work comp program with a proactive approach to claims advocacy.

We work directly with the insurance carrier on your behalf to assist in all claims handling, monitoring and administration. Specializing in national accounts headquartered in Wisconsin, we are your comprehensive risk management partner for business insurance, employee benefits, HR solutions, K services and personal insurance to protect and boost your bottom line. Workplace Safety Program Management. Empowering You. With the tools and resources to manage your workplace safety program The benefits of a successful workplace safety program are well-known—they proactively prevent injuries, ensure compliance with government regulations and can improve operations and employee morale—but programs have a lot of moving parts and can be challenging to manage effectively.

No overview of safety management systems would be complete without a discussion of organizational management. Safety management practice is derived from basic principles of business management, financial management, quality management, and, when needed, the organization and administration of bureaucracies. The word bureaucracy has come to be associated with needless complexity and inefficiency. But at the turn of the century, work especially manufacturing was transitioning from small-scale artisanal production into large-scale centralized production.

The bureaucratic coordination of the action of large numbers of people has become a dominant structural feature of modern safety program management systems. It is only through this organizational device that large-scale planning and coordination become possible. Management at this time focused on utilizing this unskilled labor by breaking work tasks into easily understandable, sequential processes that were optimized for early factory production lines.

The scientific management approach to safety can be seen in organizations with rigid rules and procedures guiding work, rigorous training and educational requirements for employees in certain roles, and strict oversight and enforcement of company rules.

Industries like commercial airlines and nuclear facilities are examples of organizations using the bureaucratic and scientific safety management approaches to ensure compliance with internal rules and outside regulators. While bureaucracy and scientific management are proven approaches to reducing injury and days-away rates, there are limits to the true effectiveness of any safety system. An overly rigid, bureaucratized, and compliance-based management structure can serve your company but leave your employees weakened by a lack of knowledge and initiative.

The safety structure you choose must exist to protect your organization from enforcement actions and fines, yes, but more importantly, it should increase the engagement and participation of every employee in your safety initiatives.

Founded in by five engineering societies and three government agencies, the American National Standards Institute ANSI remains a private, nonprofit membership organization supported by a diverse constituency of private and public sector organizations. ANSI is a non-governmental organization that manages the production and publishing of consensus standards. These standards, including the ANSI Z10, are produced by committees of subject matter experts from universities, national laboratories and individuals, industry representatives, and representatives from relevant government organizations.

Most standards are revised and updated at three-year intervals to reflect industry best practices and emerging technologies. ANSI Z10 is an American consensus standard developed by a committee of volunteer experts that outlines a complete safety management framework and process for improvement. The original standards-making committee was approved in Most company safety management programs based on the Z10 standard are written to conform to these sections for ease of auditing after implementation.

Steps 3 through 7 are considered to be a continuous improvement cycle, usually graphically presented as a never-ending circle or infinite loop.

The ISO is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. The intent is for companies to use this process to analyze their unique operations, risks, and hazards and to develop a set of policies and procedures, training, and self-audit activities that are the most effective for their activities.

Over time, as performance metrics are tracked, further optimization of the process should result in improvements to safety and health. I will highlight several sections that can help define and explain this management approach to those unfamiliar with ANSI Z A key component of this is performing a risk assessment of operations that identifies the probability of something going wrong and the estimated severity of an event.

That way the company can prioritize the higher risk operations and work on the most serious ones first, directing time and resources towards issues that directly affect safety. This leads into the next step: risk assessment. This section establishes the requirement for organizations to conduct formal risk assessments and hazard analysis of their activities and worker exposures. From there, the company establishes programs such as respiratory protection, PPE, hearing conservation, fall protection, machine guarding, etc.

The specific form and complexity of the resulting programs should reflect the level of hazard determined by the hazard analysis process used.

For example, a drywall company may be required to have a respiratory program for its workers exposed to silica, but the PPE and work rules required for employee safety in the drywall trades are much simpler to comply with than a respirator program for a company with welders cutting and welding stainless steel tanks. In this example, the welders are exposed to toxic metal particles and fumes that require tight-fitting air-purifying respirators or supplied air respirators; while the drywaller may only need N95 disposable masks.

The medical monitoring program required for the welders would also be more complex and expensive i. When the hazard analysis determines that there is no hazard present e. The initial hazard analysis and subsequent analysis of any process or equipment change will be used to justify the lack of a program in the event an enforcement agency inquires about it.

This section describes the requirements for processes to evaluate the performance of the safety management system, to take corrective action when shortcomings are found, and to provide feedback to the planning and management review processes. The section also contains guidance on performing post-accident incident investigations and program-wide audits.

Section 6 is one of the most important to achieve continuous improvement because if the audit and corrective action processes are not meaningful, then the changes recommended will not be meaningful improvements. By , it was superseded by ISO and is no longer actively supported. The team should include both hourly employees and management.

A complete inspection of the worksite should be completed once each week, with all potential safety hazards documented in full. Ongoing hazard prevention involves the often challenging work of ensuring all personnel adhere to standards as strictly as possible at all times. The chief safety officer has obvious duties here, including advocating for hazard elimination and environmental hazard reduction. Safety officers must also act as champions of accountability in workplace safety.

It might include negotiating at high levels to ensure personnel who are subject to workplace hazards are not over-scheduled. Ongoing hazard control also entails making sure that first aid and emergency medical care are available in case of incidents. Any employee health records must be retained in strict confidentiality Accommodations must be made for workplace injuries and other health issues. To ensure optimal health and safety, new personnel should go through a rigorous, multi-step training program, including one-on-one supervision from a designated staff safety expert as necessary.

Tenured personnel should also undergo periodic re-training. This can be complex in situations where you are working at a client-owned site. Department of Energy. Combining the two approaches above, it becomes possible for a safety leader to see the work at hand from both a strategic and a tactical perspective.

Safety leaders should not hesitate to advocate for the changes necessary to help teams do their best in a safe, effective way. Learn to identify and analyze potential workplace hazards, infractions and risks through a bachelor of science in occupational safety online. At Eastern Kentucky University, you will gain a graduate-level education by industry-experienced educators and fire and safety professionals who are committed to teaching and preparing you for continued success.

Skip to main content. Safety Program View all blog posts under Articles. A Step-by-Step Guide to Establishing a Safety Program Before a company can engage in construction, manufacturing, or other hazard-prone endeavors, it must have a safety and health program in place.

It is important to understand that safety and health are implemented as a program , not a project : Program A program is an ongoing, cross-functional initiative that brings together people and resources to achieve ongoing goals. Project A project is a short-term effort to harness people and resources to achieve a specific, time-limited goal.

Step 2: Analyze Worksite Safety Hazards and Best Practices Once the framework of a health and safety policy is in place, it needs to be informed with data about the specific hazards personnel will face.

Provisions for annual inspections should also be made at this stage.