Supervisors’ Safety Responsibilities

1. Provide safety training. Training must create awareness of safe behavior, teach required skills for working safely, increase knowledge by providing accurate, up-to-dater information about workplace hazards and safe practices and procedures, and shape employee attitudes toward workplace safety.
2. Provide resources and support. This means making sure employees have the proper tools and equipment, including PPE, to work safely and prevent accidents. It also means conducting job safety analyses (JSAs) to identify hazards, coaching employees to help them learn to perform their jobs more safely, and being available to answer questions, offer feedback, and discuss safety problems and concerns that employees may have. Employees must feel free to come to their supervisor any time they have a problem or question concerning safety or to report incidents and hazards without fear of blame or retaliation.
3. Enforce safety policies and rules. This begins with supervisors’ responsibility for informing employees about policies and rules. It means providing constructive feedback when supervisors see employees taking shortcuts or not following safety requirements. It may also involve administering consequences for breaking rules and violating policies.

---

Great news! BLR’s renowned Safety.BLR.com® website now has even more time-saving features. Take our no-cost site tour! Or better yet, try it at no cost or obligation for a full 2 weeks.

---

According to Oregon OSHA, a supervisor should consider these issues before he or she disciplines employees for violating safety rules:

• Has the supervisor provided adequate safety training so that the employee knew what he or she was doing was against the rules?
• Has the supervisor provided adequate resources and support to ensure safe behavior?
• Has the supervisor consistently and fairly enforces safety rules and policies?
• Has the supervisor provided adequate supervision to ensure that employees are working safely?
• Has the supervisor provided leadership and set a good safety example for employees?

A "yes" to all five questions means discipline is probably justified, although you will likely want supervisors to discuss the matter with you before taking action.

1. Oversee work. Supervisors are responsible for the safe conduct of the workers they supervise. Oregon OSHA says that providing adequate supervision means observing employees at work to make sure they are performing tasks safely, conducting safety inspections to identify and correct hazards, and analyzing incidents (including near misses) to find causes and take corrective action to prevent future incidents and injuries.
2. Demonstrate safety leadership. Leadership means more than just setting a good example for employees. It also means inspiring employees to take responsibility for their own safety and the safety of co-workers through every communication and interaction between the supervisor and employees. A good leader encourages employee-driven safety and knows that the work group is only as safe as each employee. A good leader is proactive rather than just responding when something goes wrong. A supervisor who is a good leader guides and shapes safety performance rather than just giving orders and criticizing inadequate performance.

---

Your one-stop safety management resource, available 24/7. Go here to take a no-cost site tour or here to try it in your own office!

---

Safety Leadership Starts with You

In order for your supervisors carry out their workplace safety responsibilities effectively, they need your leadership and guidance. And you need up-to-date, accurate information about workplace safety and health to keep your supervisors on the right track.

This means you need Safety.BLR.com, the website where you’ll find all the news and views about workplace safety reported and interpreted for you by BLR’s safety experts.

And of course you’ll be able to access Safety.BLR.com any time that’s convenient for you and navigate the site easily and quickly to find just the information you need.

What’s more, this one-stop safety website is a fantastic resource for safety training materials on just about any topic you can imagine.

Training responsibilities become a snap with the website’s thousands of audio presentations, PowerPoints, prewritten safety meetings, toolbox talks, trainer’s guides, and much, much more. You’ll find training tools on more than 120 safety topics along with plain-English compliance analysis and other resources.

At a time when budget considerations are paramount, what makes more sense than an all-in-one safety training and compliance solution?

And BLR has revamped Safety.BLR.com to meet your needs even better. You’ll be amazed by all the features and functionality of the site. Highlights include:

• Side-by-Side State/Federal Compliance. By placing our state and federal regulatory analysis side by side, you easily see how to fully comply with both governmental entities.
• MSDS Library Expansion. The site now provides an immense library of 3.5 million MSDS and SDS forms, with about 10,000 more added or changed every week. Need one? Just call up the chemical by name, manufacturer, product group, or CAS number, then print it out.
• Newsletter Wizard. If you’ve ever wanted to publish a safety newsletter but felt lacking in editorial skills, this new addition is for you.
• Plan Builder. Select from our library of safety plans, customize them to suit your company’s needs, and assemble them into collections you can save in our personal library.

We’re pretty excited about Safety.BLR.com and all of its enhancements, and we’re eager for you to experience it, too. That’s why we’ve created a complimentary site tour, available here. It takes just 5 minutes.

If you like what you see, you’re invited to try the site at no cost and with no obligation. We’ll even give you a complimentary special report for doing so. Go here to take a 5-minute tour of Safety.BLR.com. It may be just what you’re looking for.