Establishing a Strong Safety Culture within Your Company
Establishing key safety protocols for your company that every employee must follow can decrease accidents and injuries, keeping workers focused on the most important safety procedures related to their work.
Having every level, from management to each individual worker, accountable and demonstrating their commitment to safety is one of the most important features of a strong safety culture. This eliminates pointing fingers when something goes wrong and also makes everyone aware of the risks present in the field or site. Creating a list of core safety principles and implementing methods for employees to remember those principles daily improves accountability, and discipline measures can be properly managed.
No matter where you are in the field or at a plant, each worksite is potentially dangerous in different ways. Creating a site-specific safety plan is critical to helping managers mitigate risks and keep workers safe. A job site safety plan contains your strategy for identifying, controlling and eliminating hazards, as well as who’s in charge of doing what as far as safety is concerned. A site-specific safety plan (SSSP) is a document that spells out the potential hazards of a particular job site and exactly how the company will avoid them, as well as the safety-related policies and procedures workers are expected to follow. These plans are designed to protect everyone from employees to subcontractors to site visitors and more.
Once an SSSP is created, it should be updated to address new hazards that emerge or the environment and processes change over time. The goal of every SSSP is to eliminate accidents and injuries. OSHA does not require a written comprehensive job site safety plan, but some states do, so companies should ensure they are following state and federal regulations. OSHA does require employers to provide proper safety training and implement control measures to mitigate risks, so taking the time to create a site-specific safety plan is in everyone’s best interests.
Creating, executing, updating and (sometimes) carrying out disciplinary actions for SSSPs typically falls to the company’s safety manager or a designated manager or personnel. A secondary individual should be appointed in case the primary person needs to leave the site or is unavailable to perform those duties.If there are multiple departments and sections within a site that can be affected, it’s important to craft an SSSP that addresses the full scope of work, and all tiers should comply with the plan.
Your company may have most of the elements of a great safety program in place, including commitment and support from management, regular site-specific safety meetings and ongoing access to safety training. But companies should keep track of its effectiveness to ensure changes need to be made. In its 2019 Safety Performance Report, ABC reported that a twice-yearly review of safety program performance that evaluates whether the program is producing expected results and identifies opportunities for improvement can lead to a 59% reduction in a company’s TRIR (total recordable incident rate) and a 60% reduction in its DART (days away, restricted or transferred) score.
Before reviewing your safety program’s performance, the business needs to establish metrics to track. These include lagging indicators such as incident rates and leading indicators such as the number of walkarounds management conducts, the length of time it takes to respond to reports, how fast corrections are made after a hazard has been identified and the number of workers who have completed required safety training or who make suggestions for improving safety.
Otis Instruments offers a variety of Wired and WireFree easy-to-use, robust and configurable gas detectors to help ensure safety programs are maintaining their goals and keeping workers safe while performing their duties. Made in the USA, our high-quality products are capable of detecting both toxic and non-toxic gases for diverse applications. For integrated technology services, Otis Instruments offers Otis Link, providing industrial equipment monitoring devices and related data services. Within Otis Link, we offer automation and controls and telemetry monitoring.
Otis Link automation & controls systems provide a modernized AWS secure cloud communication system capable of tracking and delivering data in real-time, sending alerts via email or SMS text message. Connecting the user to assets via wired or wireless configurations, the user can efficiently and effectively access and control equipment remotely. Otis Link telemetry systems provide cloud-based remote industrial equipment monitoring devices and related data services. Otis Link devices send alarms by email and SMS text message, along with real-time data viewable on an easy to use website. Connecting the user to assets via wired or wireless configurations, the user can view and manage their equipment effectively.
To learn more information about gas detection solutions for your application, gas detection solutions to support your safety culture and knowledge, or have a question for us, contact our team today.