How To Set Up and Manage An Employee Safety Committee
John J. Meola is a Certified Safety Professional (CSP) and an Associates in Risk Management Degree (ARM).
He has over 25 years of experience in construction, insurance, manufacturing and risk management. He is an Adjunct Instructor at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Business and has a BA in Education.
He is the Safety Director for Pillar Inc. based in Richmond VA and is a consultant with private clients in various industries. He is an OSHA Construction Safety Outreach Trainer and is the author of two safety handbooks. He is also a regular contributor to several construction trade publications and presents seminars to select audiences all over the United States.
This webinar, has been approved for 1.50 HR (General) recertification credit hours toward aPHR™, PHR®, PHRca®, SPHR®, GPHR®, PHRi™ and SPHRi™ recertification through HR Certification Institute® (HRCI®).
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Employee Safety Committees are important mechanisms in the workplace that offer many advantages over the traditional ‘I’m the Boss’ Theory X generational management model. In brief, those days are increasingly diminishing.
Participatory engagement is becoming the new mantra for an enlightened (SAFE) workplace, particularly for:
- Manual labor tasks, factory work, assembly, etc
- Language and cultural differences among groups- helps assimilate and create an inclusive atmosphere
- Improved worker morale
- Decreasing incidents, accidents, loss of product, waste, damage, etc
This Webinar will discuss the steps needed to set up your Committee and make it work at the optimum level, at the startup level or as a refinement to an existing Committee.
Safety Committees – also known as ‘Focus Groups’ are highly effective on a number of levels to move your Safety Program forward, for example by conducting Workplace Inspections; Cross –Skills training; selection of most effective PPE, hosting SME’s and guest speakers, etc.
In summary, there are many operative work functions and contributions that a properly run safety committee can make and help improve on.
Areas Covered
- How to selects a Committee Chairperson and the individual Members
- How often does the Committee meet?
- How do I run the meeting?
- How to set up an agenda for the Committee – it’s not a gripe session
- My people are dispersed all over the countryside, they are never together, how do I make this work. We’ll tell you how!
- Administration – Keeping meeting minutes and notes
- The Committee should have a basic set of formative procedures, which are included in your Safety Manual. This is not a one-shot deal
- Results of the Safety Committee Process- give a report at the regular All Employee Safety Meeting – ‘Here’s what we found’
- When to rotate Membership, how often, how long in the role
- Gauging the effectiveness of the Committee
- Reviewing incidents and accidents
- Close Call reporting and Near Miss investigations
- PPE and safety hardware trials and reviews
- Use of Subject Matter Experts and Guest Speakers at Committee Meetings
- How much is all this going to cost? We’ll discuss the most economical ways to run the Committee – it’s not a particularly expensive process
- How to LEVERAGE the Committee to achieve optimum results across your entire operation, even reaching the parts not directly involved at the Committee level
Course Level - Basic to Intermediate
Who Should Attend
- Safety Directors; Safety Officers; Safety Managers
- Insurance Loss Control Managers; Claim Adjusters
- Human Resource personnel
- Field Superintendents
- Working Foremen
- Supervisors; Crew Leaders
- Safety Committees
- Business Managers
- Operations Managers
- Project Managers
- EHS Managers
- Risk Managers
- Military Safety Officers
- NAVFAC Personnel – US Army Corp of Engineers
- OSHA Personnel
- QA/QC Officers
Why Should You Attend
- Safety Committees prevent accidents. PERIOD!
- They are highly effective vehicles for predicting, addressing and avoiding the types of accidents commonly found across a wide swath of industry-manufacturing, commercial, construction, CPG, warehouse, transportation, etc
- They use the basic human trait of “wanting to belong” in a Group Dynamic setting to add meaning to their presence in your workplace. The Committee has a strong presence in the overall Group Dynamic and selection of the Members is important. We will discuss how the selection and rotation process should evolve and how to make it work best for your particular operation
- This is important because getting it wrong on the outset can lead to poor outcomes and negative perceptions in the field of safety. No one wants to ‘fail’ especially when it comes to the critical subject of Occupational Safety
- Additionally, Safety Committees offer a protective layer of defense against allegations of ‘they don’t care about safety’ or similar negligence allegations. This is hugely important to your insurance company and loss control representatives, who look for sincerity and commitment from their clients as a measure of protection and incident avoidance
- In fact, there is a long and robust list of reasons why any business should implement a Safety Committee. The corresponding list of reasons NOT to have one is minuscule and thin
- This webinar will walk thru the process in layman’s terms and offer insight on how to get a simple Safety Committee up and running and foster the employee motivation resident in your group to achieve a successful outcome
Topic Background
- One of the most effective parts of any Safety Program will include EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT!
- This is what the “O” word in OSHA refers to ‘ Occupational’ (translation – PEOPLE)
- Effective and vibrant Safety Committees prevent INCIDENTS and MOTIVATE co-workers
- It has long been recognized by Behavioral and Industrial Psychologists that having the people who do the work involved in the decisions that affect their safety is a hugely effective mechanism
- While this characteristic has always been a truism in the industry, it is even more so now in the age of social media, which has transformed the traditional employee-supervisor communication relationship
- People ‘want a say’ in their work life. Even the most minimal of their work requirements is subject to decision and change. Enlightened management should understand this and use it to their advantage
- This Webinar is intended to demystify and explore the formation of a Safety Committee and give you a leg up on the actual process, avoiding the landmines and quicksand traditionally encountered in this process
- Make no mistake-OSHA will ask this question on an Audit, Inspection, Complaint or Investigation. You want to be able to definitively answer YES to this question! “We sure do have a Safety Committee!”
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$200.00
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