Building a Safety Program

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There is a wealth of information on the internet that will lead you to information to educate yourself and model a program that fits your organization needs. The Occupational Health and Safety Administration (“OSHA”) has model programs available at its website. Go to the following website to access that information: 

https://www.osha.gov/dcsp/compliance_assistance/sampleprograms.html.

OSHA’s sites provides sample safety programs on this page. Please view the section titled General Health and Safety Programs. Under this section is a link to a Sample Safety and Health Program for Small Business.

In addition, to OSHA there are state specific sites that have very helpful information regarding safety programs. Texas and Ohio have been very useful.

Ohio has literature on the 10 Steps to establishing a health and safety program that are clear and concise. Those steps are:  

1. Visible, active senior management leadership
2. Employee involvement and recognition
3. Medical treatment and return-to-work practices
4. Communication
5. Timely notification of claims
6. Safety and health process coordination and employer education
7. Written orientation and training plan
8. Written and communicated safe work practices
9. Written safety and health policy
10. Record keeping and data analysis

Source: https://www.bwc.ohio.gov/downloads/blankpdf/10stepman.pdf

The first step mentions visible and active leadership, which includes the need for senior management’s financial and strategic support of the safety program. From my experience this is the most critical of all the steps. Proceeding without senior management full "buy-in" to the process will most certainly result in inadequate resources and competing interests within the organization.

For instance, if senior management indicates to their organization that the number one priority is customer satisfaction and quality, then safety invariably becomes subordinate to those directives. When the safety and risk management professional seeks to engage the organization and securing operations  "buy-in" into the safety program, it must compete with senior managements other priorities and integrate them into those priorities, which risks diluting the message. 

In addition, the safety professional will need to compete for funding of the safety program. Funding would include resources for staff to perform training, communication materials, administration of accident investigations and follow up on investigation findings to prevent further accidents.

To secure proper funding and management buy-in, the risk and safety professional must be an advocate for their programs. They must quantify return on investment into the safety program that the resources being expended will bring to the organization. The organizations existence is to enhance shareholders value and provide a return on the shareholders investment, so the risk and safety professional will need to understand finance and be able to sell its program. One could also argue that an organization has a ethical duty to protect and care for its human resources, but the financial argument coupled with the human factor argument will be more compelling.

For instance, if there is a recommendation that a fleet of vehicles should have on-board global positioning systems that will measure driver activity, then the program costs should be compared with a credible forecast of savings related to the number of accidents prevented, reduced accident severity and provide an summary of the ancillary benefits. The ancillary benefits were mentioned in the last post, but warrant repeating. Those benefits include reduced administrative costs, keeping production on schedule and fostering a sense of caring for the employees well being.

So the first steps of the process of instituting a robust safety program are to secure senior management’s support and gaining employee involvement.

The first three steps of the safety management cycle of identifying and analyzing the organizational processes and hazards present in the workplace and examining alternative processes or techniques to treat the hazards will need to take place so that a presentation to senior management can be constructed.

Gaining employee involvement will include the formation a safety committee to steer the safety efforts and provide feedback to senior management on the performance of the program. This will be the topic of the next post.  

(Image source: http://www.avertex.ca/aus_index.php?pg=34)