Safety Committee
Getting the crew onboard. Creating support for your safety efforts is crucial to establishing a culture of safety in your workplace. A great way to accomplish this is with a proper Safety Committee. (In fact, the Montana Safety Culture Act requires a Safety Committee for all employers with more than five employees.) Depending on the size of your business, this group can move the safety process forward with:
- Clearly established goals
- Delegation of responsibilities
- Effective communication between you and your employees
- Consistent effort and accountability
Some guidelines. Your committee should be prepared to cover these responsibilities:
- Get endorsement and authority from top management
- Include both management and employees
- Insist that every department be represented in the committee
- Meet often enough to address and achieve specific goals and programs
- Document meetings, topics, and participants
- Establish mandatory attendance by committee members
- Conduct periodic safety audits
- Review circumstances and causes of accidents, and recommend corrective measures
- Review employees’ reports of unsafe working procedures or safety hazards, and recommend corrective measures
- Develop and conduct employee safety awareness programs and training. Be composed of employee and employer representatives and hold regularly scheduled meetings, at least once every four months
RECOMMENDATIONS: The safety committee should:
- Be of sufficient size and number to provide for effective representation of the workforce
- Have more than one safety committee for employers with multiple sites
- Include in its employee membership volunteers or members elected by their peers.
- Include safety committee activities that assist the employer in fact finding.
- The committee should document its activities and act as a fact finding body and report to the employer regarding:
- Assessing and controlling hazards
- Assessing safety training and awareness topics
- Communication with employees regarding safety committee activities
- Developing safety rules, policies and procedures
- Educating employees on safety related topics
- Evaluating the safety program on a regular basis
- Inspecting the workplace
- Keeping job specific training current
- Motivating employees to create a safety culture in the workplace
- Reviewing incidents of workplace accidents, injuries and illnesses
