Safety is all about awareness and knowledge. Knowledge gives you the power to prevent accidents. One of the best ways to keep informed about ever-changing work area conditions is to perform routine safety inspections. Today we look at some of the legal, management, and training issues involved with self-inspections.
Legal Issues
BLR’s Safety Audit Checklists notes that OSHA doesn’t mandate safety and health self-audits as such. But the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSH Act) that created OSHA states that the Act’s purpose is “… to assure safe and healthful working conditions for working men and women…” To make sure that employees’ working conditions are safe and healthful, the Act states that workplaces must be “periodically evaluated” and authorizes OSHA to conduct inspections for that purpose.
Designing and conducting your own audit helps you prepare for an OSHA inspection. Safety audits also encourage and maintain employee interest in safety. And, as audit recommendations are adopted, you should see a drop in your accident and injury rates.
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Management Issues
A self-inspection audit is the first stage in establishing or improving, your entire system of safety and health management. Safety Audit Checklists recommends the following preliminary steps:
- Prepare for your self-audit by becoming familiar with the OSHA standards that apply to your area(s) of responsibility.
- Inspect your workplace using the checklists that follow.
- Identity recognizable hazards.
- Analyze data to find the less obvious dangers.
- Conduct job hazard analyses.
- Study accident and near-miss reports to look for problem areas and patterns.
- Set priorities.
- Take action.
Training Issues
Regular, frequent, and thorough self-inspections are not only an excellent way to prevent safety and health problems. They’re also a strong and flexible training tool. Self-inspection audits:
- Reinforce training every time you have an audit.
- Identify needs for further training.
- Involve workers in making the workplace safe.
Safety Audit Checklists suggests the following steps to include employees in the process:
- Ask for employee input in designing checklists.
- Try a rotation system to give different employees responsibility for conducting an inspection or audit.
- Appoint a team to look into a specific regulation that could apply to your workplace and is frequently cited for violations. The team can raise and answer questions like:
- What are likely causes of violations?
- What are the solutions to the problem?
- How well does the team think your company complies with the law?
- What changes will bring everyone more in line?
The greater the employee participation in the self-auditing process, the farther the sense of responsibility for safety extends. When you consider the importance OSHA places on training, self-inspections that heighten safety awareness clearly pay off in compliance as well as in the quality of your workplace.
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Ready-Made Checklists
This is only a sampling of the material Safety Audit Checklists provides in its section on Self-Inspections Audits (not to mention the accompanying 30-point checklist!). All told, this best-selling program provides you with more than 300 separate safety checklists, keyed to three main criteria:
- OSHA compliance checklists, built right from the government standards in such key areas as HazCom, lockout/tagout, electrical safety, and many more.
- “Plaintiff attorney” checklists, built around those non-OSHA issues that often attract lawsuits.
- Safety management checklists that monitor the administrative procedures you need to have for topics such as OSHA 300 Log maintenance, training program scheduling and recordkeeping, and OSHA-required employee notifications.
Make as many copies as needed for all your supervisors and managers, and distribute. What’s more, the entire program is updated annually. And the cost averages only about $1 per checklist.
If this method of ensuring a safer, more OSHA-compliant workplace interests you, we’ll be happy to make Safety Audit Checklists available for a no-cost, no-obligation, 30-day evaluation in your office. Just let us know, and we’ll be pleased to arrange it.