It’s always important to have an easily-accessible and competent safety management resource, whether it’s a full-time member of your staff or a trusted third-party consultant.  For some companies, an internal Safety or EHS Manager is just as essential as their Operations or Finance Manager.  Other companies, such as those in relatively low-hazard industries, can sometimes get away with assigning safety as a secondary duty to internal staff.  Those multiple-hat-wearing employees should have a decent grasp of basic safety management concepts and a solid understanding of the OSHA standards applicable to their operations.  They will often seek the expertise of, and work in tandem with, a third-party safety consultant for periodic efforts such as compliance audits, program development, OSHA inspection assistance, or anything else that might be out of their wheelhouse.

If you’re considering the addition of a safety professional to your team, the list below might help shed some light on your situation.  Or, maybe your company is one of many that hasn’t yet realized that this applies to you!  Either way, take a moment to reflect:

• Consider your size and industry: companies with 200+ total employees – especially in a higher-hazard industry, such as in OSHA’s list of NAICS codes covered by the Injury/Illness Recordkeeping Rule – should already have an internal Safety Manager.
  • The hazards posed to employees across these industries vary greatly, and some companies with higher risk levels require full-time safety management teams well below the 200 (or even 100) mark.
  • There’s even a formula to calculate how many safety professionals you should hire based on a number of variables.
• Are you aware of, and have you effectively implemented all OSHA-required safety programs applicable to your operations?
  • Some companies are simply unaware of the extensive list of ongoing requirements they must fulfill, and OSHA doesn’t hand out free passes for being unaware.
• Are you aware of, and have you effectively provided all OSHA-required training to your employees based on their job requirements and hazard exposures (at required intervals, specifically according to each applicable standard)?
• Are you maintaining a low DART rate relative to your industry average?
• Has a recent injury or safety-related incident put you behind on production, drawn bad publicity, or hurt your reputation?
• Have your operations grown or expanded to include new hazards with which you’re not entirely familiar?
• Are you performing thorough accident investigations with root cause analyses and effectively addressing the underlying safety factors?
• Do you have a positive safety culture and good employee morale? If your employees don’t feel that you value their safety, they won’t value your business.
• Are employees voicing safety concerns and/or have there been rumors (or outright threats) of filing a complaint with OSHA?

If you’ve answered favorably to all these questions, congrats – you’re a well-oiled safety machine!  However, if your answers were unfavorable, or perhaps you were unsure of how to answer some of these, this is your sign that you may need to at least consider hiring a safety consultant to review your compliance and help fill in some gaps.  You might want to consider initiating a discussion at the next management team meeting about creating a full-time internal position.

If you have additional questions about managing your company’s safety program and how Spooner may be able to help, please contact us at 440-249-5260 or info@spoonerinc.com.

Matthew Janas, Senior Safety Consultant, Spooner Incorporated