What safety professional would say no to an extra right arm? Well-trained, purposeful safety committees can significantly augment a safety manager’s capability, and boost a company’s overall success.
Safety committees are common in companies of all sizes in virtually all industries, both unionized and not. Although they got their start in auto manufacturing, committees are everywhere today.
Although they are not required, safety committees are admired by OSHA. The state of Oregon mandates them for many businesses, and in Pennsylvania, certified committees can earn employers rebates on the cost of workers’ compensation coverage. In California, committees may serve as a legally required means of communicating with workers about safety and health.
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New York State of Mind
The New York State Department of Transportation offers an excellent model. The department describes a committee’s purpose as “to involve all employees in the decision-making processes which affect them.” The policy manual adds: “Safety committees must earn the respect of their co-workers, even though at times it seems to be a thankless job.”
The list of duties recommended by the department includes the following, and is typical of many committees:
- Be the facility’s safety “eyes and ears.”
- Find and help correct problems.
- Be proactive and innovative, rather than just “fight fires.”
- Help investigate accidents and near-misses.
- Help establish and maintain safety polices and procedures.
- Help conduct fatality inspections.
- Serve as a clearinghouse for safety information.
- Assist in determining accident preventability.
Finally, the policy emphasizes that the committee should not have an enforcement role; this should be left to supervisors and managers.
New York’s Department of Transportation has also come up with some excellent tips for committee success. Among them are the following:
- Choose the right people and assure that each member deserves a seat.
- Don’t fall into bad habits like meeting without a solid agenda or meeting just to reach a quota.
- Rotate leadership and responsibility.
- Don’t forget at-home safety, as off-the-job attitudes strongly affect what happens at work.
- Don’t make decisions just to get items checked off a list.
- Monitor new policies and procedures to be sure they’re working.
- Assign members specific duties with responsibility for follow-up.
- Never lose sight of the purpose of the committee—a safe and healthy work environment.
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The Website for Safety Professionals
If you are a subscriber to Safety.BLR.com, you can read articles like this one and yesterday’s how to successfully make the case for safety to your management.
This powerhouse website will provide you with the advice, the news, the analysis, and the guidance you need to keep up to date with developments in EHS and enjoy success as a safety professional. And you’ll be able to access Safety.BLR.com 24/7, at your convenience.
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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:
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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.
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