{"id":1302,"date":"2014-05-30T13:54:43","date_gmt":"2014-05-30T13:54:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/allrisktraining.com\/?p=1302"},"modified":"2014-05-30T14:05:55","modified_gmt":"2014-05-30T14:05:55","slug":"go-beyond-safety-compliance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/allrisktraining.com\/allrisktraining\/safety-in-the-workplace\/go-beyond-safety-compliance\/","title":{"rendered":"Go Beyond Safety Compliance"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"OLYMPUS<\/a>Go Beyond Safety Compliance<\/span><\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

In 1970, Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act, also known as the Williams-Stieger Act. Under the OSH Act, a new organization was formed to consolidate existing federal safety standards, and develop new ones to reduce workplace injuries.\u00a0 Since inception compliance has been expected for existing standards and new standards and revisions.<\/p>\n

Many of the OSHA standards give \u201cthou shall\u201d instructions but do not prescribe how to comply with the \u201cthou shall\u201d.\u00a0 Simply put, there are not set procedures to ensure that an employer is in compliance with the federal standards. \u00a0\u00a0Each employer has the freedom to tailor a Safety and Health Management System that best fits their needs. \u00a0 However, being in compliance alone will not keep a workplace injury free.<\/p>\n

Common sense is implied from OSHA to bring your company into compliance.\u00a0\u00a0 Creating, maintaining, and communicating detailed policies, procedures, in house audits, 3rd<\/sup> party audits, and training specific to whatever your company does or produces will get you on the road to compliance.<\/p>\n

While compliance provides guide lines for safety, compliance alone will not keep a workplace injury free.\u00a0 For instance, one of our colleagues recently shared an example of a problem that one of their clients were having with slips, trips and falls.\u00a0 Even though the client believed that they were in compliance with the OSHA standards, specifically 29 CFR subpart D<\/a>, they were still having employee injuries due to slips, trips and falls.\u00a0 They had procedures, audits and employee training.\u00a0 What was missing?\u00a0 Why were there still injuries?<\/p>\n

This client has over 80,000 employees in just about every state in the US.\u00a0 Some of the injuries were from cold weather, some from bad habits, but all of the injuries were preventable.\u00a0 Our colleague explained that she developed an employee awareness program. \u00a0Once the employee awareness program was put into motion, the client found that some employees were not aware that there was a problem.\u00a0 One employee boasted that they had been with the company over 40 years and never had an injury.\u00a0 That\u2019s great.\u00a0 What is their secret?\u00a0 There really wasn\u2019t any secret.\u00a0 This person pays attention to the details.<\/p>\n

Our colleague went on to explain that she worked with the client to focus on communication with each employee on ways to prevent these injuries.\u00a0 They found they were most successful when they would set up informal gatherings and just have conversations.\u00a0 As the conversations progressed, more and more people would join in or listen.\u00a0 Using this method the client identified simple \u201ccommon sense\u201d solutions such as:<\/p>\n

o\u00a0\u00a0 Don\u2019t be in a hurry<\/p>\n

o\u00a0\u00a0 Don\u2019t walk and text or talk on the phone<\/p>\n

o\u00a0\u00a0 Use the hand rail when walking up and down stairs<\/p>\n

o\u00a0\u00a0 Look at and correct the condition of your shoes (untied, old, no longer protective or supportive)<\/p>\n

o\u00a0\u00a0 Clean up the small spill on the floor that you walked around<\/p>\n

o\u00a0\u00a0 Communicate hazards to others<\/p>\n

By having conversations with small groups of employees, they are starting to see a reversal in their slip and trip injuries. \u00a0Communicating safety and hazards has become routine.\u00a0 Fliers and posters remind employees of their safety tips and rules. \u00a0They have found a way, through an awareness program that they can reach their employees and make a difference.\u00a0 They did fix a few \u201ccompliance\u201d issues, but that alone would not have reversed their injury trend.<\/p>\n

It all comes down to protecting your greatest assets, your employees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Go Beyond Safety Compliance   In 1970, Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act, also known as the Williams-Stieger Act. Under the OSH Act, a new organization was formed to consolidate existing federal safety standards, and develop new ones to reduce workplace injuries.\u00a0 Since inception compliance has been expected for existing standards and new standards and revisions. Many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[63,65,64],"class_list":["post-1302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-safety-in-the-workplace","tag-beyond-safety-compliance","tag-employee-awareness-program","tag-osha-compliance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/allrisktraining.com\/allrisktraining\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/allrisktraining.com\/allrisktraining\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/allrisktraining.com\/allrisktraining\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allrisktraining.com\/allrisktraining\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allrisktraining.com\/allrisktraining\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1302"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/allrisktraining.com\/allrisktraining\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1309,"href":"https:\/\/allrisktraining.com\/allrisktraining\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1302\/revisions\/1309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/allrisktraining.com\/allrisktraining\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allrisktraining.com\/allrisktraining\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allrisktraining.com\/allrisktraining\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}