Whether you are starting a new business, expanding your business, or simply trying to update an outdated safety plan, setting your safety goals can be a difficult task. We all want to say that our goal is 100% OSHA compliance with every possible safety certificate, no onsite injuries, and around the clock safety management. Unfortunately, that goal is a bit lofty for year one of a new Safety and Health Management System.

If your goals are unattainable, the real growth that your company shows in relation to safety will be lost to you, as you have not met unrealistic goals. You need to put yourself in a place where you are reaching for difficult, but attainable, goals. If your goals are too easy, you run the opposite risk of goals that are too difficult – you will feel overconfident that you reached your goals, and that can affect the long term value of your goals.

Finding that balance, however, can be very difficult. Utilizing the expertise of a third party safety auditor can be a great starting point, however many third party safety auditors will only audit your safety plan, not help you determine their efficacy. This can leave your results skewed if your safety goals are too aggressive or not aggressive enough. So relying on your annual audit to take care of your safety plan and safety goals can leave you in a terrible situation.

Instead, you need to have a serious conversation with your safety and management teams, discussing the real threats to the safety of your business, as well as what is and is not currently working. That information needs to be compared to OSHA’s regulations regarding your business and the relevant third party safety certificates available. Then, you need to determine how much you can take care of this year, and how much you need to hold off on, making sure you meet and maintain all OSHA standards in the process.

If this sounds like a difficult task, that’s because it is. But don’t worry, it is achievable. And if you need any help in setting your safety goals, please contact us to help you. If you have any other tips for setting a safety goal please leave a comment.

OSHA regulates and oversees all aspects of safety in the workplace. No matter what your line of business, there is something you are doing which OSHA has a standard for. These standards have been developed over 30 years of intensely studying workplace accidents and effective prevention methods. OSHA does not take noncompliance lightly, and you should not either.

At the heart of OSHA’s standards is the concept of a Safety and Health Management System. A Safety and Health Management System is a system you put in place to confirm compliance with OSHA. A poorly created or outdated system can lead to undertrained employees or ineffective procedures in place for handling workplace hazards. Either way, you are looking at potentially crippling fines for you and your business and unnecessary injuries to your team.

If you are concerned with the quality of your Safety and Health Management System, or if you feel it needs to be updated, don’t procrastinate – do it. It’s not fun to update it, and it’s certainly not easy but if done correctly, it can be a pretty painless process. You need to start from the beginning; assess your workplace, its hazards, and what your safety goals are. Next, examine your business objectives and find the sticking points between safety and business practicality. Then, troubleshoot how you can smooth over those issues.

If you find you are having some difficulties, that’s ok – normal, even. That’s where we come in. We can help you create and maintain a Safety and Health Management System, keeping the realities of the business world in mind. Then, we can help you maintain your Safety and Health Management System with annual audits, which will keep you up to code in the future. If you are ready to take safety seriously, and get your business up to speed, or to check to ensure your business is compliant, contact us; we would love to help. If you have anything to add, please leave a comment.

While there are many reasons for workplace accidents, unsafe acts by workers remains the largest problem. Studies indicate that anywhere fro 85% to 90% of all workplace accidents are caused by unsafe acts, which are things that could easily be prevented and avoided. Many of these acts are perpetrated by employees who either do not have the basic knowledge required to safely and effectively do their jobs, or by employees who are not made aware of specific safety guidelines pertaining to their jobs.

While individuals do bear some of the blame for their actions, a larger portion of that blame falls on the employer and the management team. It is the responsibility of management to ensure that every employee is capable of doing their job safely, and that every employee is following every procedure. If personal protective equipment should be worn, it is the duty of supervisors to ensure it is being worn, and the duty of ownership to ensure that supervisors are enforcing these rules. Similarly, an employee can not be expected to wear equipment that he or she does not know exists because that information was never passed down to him or her.

To avoid problems such as this, it is imperative that management institute clear and concise practices around safety, and that there is never an expectation of knowledge around safe practices. Until an employee is specifically given the safety procedures, and trained in safety, it is not fair to assume that they will work in a safe manner. You should not put your employees in this situation, as it is dangerous to them and opens you up to compliance issues.

If you do not have a comprehensive safety plan, it is time to get one. If you need help in writing one, it might be a good idea to hire a professional firm to help you organize your procedures to ensure they are up to code with OSHA requirements. If you would like some help in organizing your safety procedures, or if you would like to ensure that your procedures are adequate, please contact us so that we can assist you in ensuring your business is running safely. Please leave any comments you have about the importance of communicating safety procedures in the comments section.

OHSAS 18001 is an important standard for any business committed to safety. While not required, like OSHA regulations, implementing OHSAS 18001 will help you stay in compliance with many of the OSHA regulations that pertain to your business. OHSAS takes a common sense look at your business, at what you do, and at your potential hazards, and looks to mitigate risk without interrupting business flow.

This standard accomplishes this by involving management and employees, requiring effective training, identifying hazards, evaluating your business’ operations to see if any hazards are created from them, and taking all of that to create a plan to prevent and control all found hazards. The process of OHSAS 18001 has proven results, and ensures your business is in compliance with OSHA regulations relating to Lockout/Tagout, Emergency Evacuation Plans, Confined Spaces, Arc Flash, Personal Protective Equipment, and Signage among other things.

As you can see, we have previously blogged about each one of these topics. This should show how important each topic truly is – and to implement a comprehensive solution which covers all of these topics together will save you time, money, work place injuries, and headaches. Further, should you ever have issues with OSHA, being able to show your action plan and continued adherence to OHSAS 18001 will help you avoid additional and unnecessary citations and fines.

While the initial implementation of this standard can be difficult, a professional firm who has been down this road before can help you to understand the specifics as they relate to your business. Further, good firms will have plans in place to help you to stay in compliance. Here at PF Safety, we utilize our Factory Solutions Software to help you to continue to monitor your compliance. With this software, you can be sure that you are remaining in compliance as your systems and processes change.

If you would like more information about OHSAS 18001 or if you would like more information about our Factory Solutions Software, please contact us. And if you have anything to add about the benefits of OHSAS 18001, please leave a comment.

These standards concern the mechanisms in place to ensure the safety of employees working in a factory and to minimize the environmental affect of said factory. The certification process involves rigorous assessments and perpetual reviews, as well as extensive documentation of the processes you have in place to ensure safety and effective environmental awareness.

The processes necessary to meet these certification requirements are strikingly similar. At their core, these standards are practically indistinguishable; they both require similar documentation and processes. Because of this, one well designed product can help you to meet your regulatory requirements for both standards.

Unfortunately, this product would also have to account for the differences. Some of the major differences between these standards include: employee engagement, the risk reduction hierarchy of 18001, the differing intents, and the implementation of the processes. Without accounting for these differences, a company can not qualify for either of these important certifications.

This is where our Factory Solutions Software is effective. We designed this software to be an all encompassing program to keep your factory compliant in a number of different ways, including a number of key OSHA regulations and OHSAS 18001 and ISO 14000. With our software, you can set your processes, track your changes and evaluations, and ensure employee participation. Our software is all browser based, and can be incorporated with our other services.

We at PFSafety take safety seriously, if you should have any questions about these or any other standards, please contact us. And if you have anything else to add to our brief discussion of these standards, please leave a comment.