Ensuring Workplace Safety Through OSHA Compliance

Creating a safe workplace for your people, as mandated by the United States Department of Labor through Occupational Safety and Health Administration in 1970, can help prevent work-related injury and death, especially in high-risk industries. 

Workplace safety management is about proactively preventing incidents that put your employees at risk and ensures and complying with the OSHA guidelines. This enables:

• Faster emergency responses to shop floor injuries
• Reduction in operational risks
• Better safety planning by analyzing pattern risks 
• Improvement in employee performance
• Safety and health compliance

8 Pillars for a Workplace Safety Management Workflow

The prerequisites for the successful implementation of your workplace safety management system include

1. Top management commitment
2. Creating a reporting system encouraging employee participation
3. Training workers to identify and mitigate risks
4. Performing periodic inspections and Job Hazard Analyses to reduce risks
5. Collecting data and performing analytics to prevent future occurrences
6. Prioritizing risks and putting in controls
7. Planning for emergencies and unusual occurrences
8. Constantly improving based on experience

The PDCA cycle is essential for a smooth implementation and continuous improvement of your systems to keep pace with the changing market and regulatory requirements.

Step 1: Plan

Once the team is aware of the safety policy, employee roles, and responsibilities, the first step in OSHA compliance will be planning. While building an SMS for the workplace, it is necessary to plan the execution methodology of the system that allows the HR and safety teams to work collaboratively. Broadly, the following points should be considered

• OHSMS issues in the order of priority including hazards, risks, areas for improvement, safety deficiencies
• Objectives of the safety and health management system based on the issues identified
• An implementation plan that includes a list of process items from safety checklist, daily data entry, document management, risk management, CAPA, inspection management

 

Step 2: Do

Next is implementation. It is essential to have a safety checklist that will cover all aspects of the compliance requirements. The four broad components of the implementation process include:

• Operational elements such as risk assessment, emergency responses, process verification among others
• Training
• Communication
• Documentation

Step 3: Check

Having a proactive approach is the key to OSHA compliance. Safety and health compliance is a continuous process. Constant monitoring is important to ensure that the system is working as per the plan and is relevant to the evolving regulatory and organizational requirements.

Step 4: Act

Continuous evaluation is the cornerstone of a successful safety program and enables remaining OSHA compliant. Employers must constantly evaluate the safety program for early indicators to predict mishaps on the shop floor. With a strong communication system, businesses can leverage these data points to train and educate employees on safety standards. Over time, these parameters can be used as a checklist to improve the safety and health standards of the organization. 

Workplace Management Solution from ComplianceQuest

The workplace Environment, Health and Safety solution from ComplianceQuest has been designed with OSHA as the guiding principle, making compliance automatic and intuitive. The EHS solution is modular and therefore can be implemented cost-effectively and quickly based on your risks and priorities.

ComplianceQuest has also launched the Workplace Safety app for Work.com on the Salesforce.com platform. This app upholds OSHA’s safety standards by offering a data-driven, collaborative platform to manage the workflows for employee health and workplace safety. Organizations can use the Workplace Safety app to create a robust SMS for their employees.

Contact us for more information.