New Policies For Workplace Health & Safety

Alberta Safety and Auditing Service is providing safety services with the latest techniques which meet the Small Employer Certificate of Recognition(SECOR) Standards. One of the new policies that the certifying partners are asking for is, a safety meeting policy. They want you to commit as management, to having a safety meeting at least once a month. I’m not talking about a tool box meeting or a pre-job meeting as these are held usually daily or at least weekly on the construction sites. I am talking of formal safety meeting where everyone’s required to attend and it would take approximately one to two hours to complete.

The minimal requirements for the minutes of a safety meeting would be; name of the chairperson, policy time and location of the safety meeting, name of the person taking the minutes. You must discuss all the previous incidents, accidents, and close calls that happened between the last meeting and this meeting. Now you open the floor to all the workers and invite their participation in the safety meeting by asking them if they have anything to add. It helps if you go around before the safety meeting and encourage people to talk about things that are happening in their work areas. Usually, when one person talks about something the ice is broken and everyone will chip in with their opinions on the subject. It is very important not to let this get off-topic so basically channel the non-safety related questions until coffee break or other such time.

You would also list any actions to be taken as a result of incident or accident investigations, these corrective actions would be assigned to a specific individual with a target date set. Sometimes you may even set up a committee to investigate or to research how it is done in other places and get better ideas on how you can complete the task in your company. These are all mentioned in the minutes as well. Finally everyone must sign the sheet to prove attendance. Those who are not in attendance will be given a copy of these minutes so that they will know what was discussed at the meeting. Only those who are excused from the safety meeting for prior work-related commitments or other things such as, vacation that was previously scheduled will be allowed to miss the meeting. Other people who miss the safety meeting without permission will find themselves with disciplinary action.

Safety meeting should be put on the health and safety board until the time of the next meeting and then it should be filed in the folder of safety meetings. Workplace wealth & safety must be the priority for all organizations in todays date.

Safety Program Evaluations

At Alberta Safety and Auditing Service, the job we perform is to evaluate existing health and safety programs. When we evaluate a safety program, we literally take it apart and look at all the intricate parts and working of the program.We make sure there are correct amount of policies, a mission statement, assignments and responsibilities for workers, managers, supervisors, and senior managers. We also make sure that, if they use subcontractors they are listed in the assignment of responsibilities as well. Next, we make sure they meet all the current Occupational Health & Safety guidelines and codes for the type of industry they are working in. For instance, if they deal with any chemicals or dangerous substances listed in schedule 1 of the occupational health and safety(OH & S) regulations they would need a code of practice for each of the substances they deal with.

A code of practice is specifically designed for your company, depending upon how the workers are going to deal safely with the dangerous chemicals. It even describes the acceptable Personal protective equipments (PPE) that will be worn including model numbers and unit numbers of the PPE. It will give very detailed instructions on how to deal with the dangerous chemicals including LEL’s and UEL’s (lower and upper flammability limit) and describing whether it is heavier than air or lighter than air.

After we check to see if any codes of practice are missing or needed we move on to the next section. All safety programs need a good preventative maintenance program. You need to prove that you are looking after all your equipments according to the manufacturer’s specifications. If for example, while taking care of your vehicle, you would be required to change the oil and inspect everything at least every 5000 km as per manufacturer specifications. This is also known as the owner’s manual. If you do not have an owner’s manual for a piece of equipment, you can get one from a dealer or the manufacturer. You may have to spend a little bit of money to get it but, it will tell you how and when to do regular maintenance and what to inspect while doing it. Safety program evaluations will ensure safety of your employees and thus better performance.