Organizing and Effective Safety Committee

An active and effective safety committee whose membership and functions are reflective of the company’s size, complexity, and operating exposures will play a key role in the overall performance of that company.  The Safety Committee is established to be of benefit first and foremost to the employees it represents, but it is also established as a safeguard and protector of the Company’s assets. 

The objectives, functions, roles and responsibilities of the Safety Committee are presented below. The basic objectives of the Safety Committee:

  • Reduce the incidence of injury and illness throughout the operations
  • Improve the overall safety in the work environment
  • Maintain lines of safety communication with all employees
  • Protect the Company’s assets

General function of the Safety Committee:

  • Identify and investigate potential workplace hazards
  • Develop processes to eliminate or reduce identified hazards
  • Enforce safety rules
  • Measure safety performance
  • Assist safety coordinator(s) in the implementation of safety and health programs
  • Administration and monitoring of established safety and health programs
  • Encourage the active participation of all personnel in the safety process
  • Establish techniques to reduce accident frequency and severity rates
  • Ensure that the facility is compliant with all applicable Cal/OSHA or OSHA standards and Company policy requirements
  • Increase employee safety awareness and general morale
  • Facilitate communication and cooperation between management and personnel on safety and health related issues
  • Development of new safety policies, programs and procedures
  • Demonstration of results to management and employees

Specific tasks for the Safety Committee:

  • Review accidents reports from supervisors and other incident reports that are pertinent to company operations
  • Develop action plan to prevent recurrence of incident
  • Communicate information learned from accident investigations is to all affected employees, appropriate management personnel and to other facilities with similar operations
  • Conduct periodic walk-around inspections and develop list of action items
  • Review action items identified in walk-around inspections, assign a responsible person and due date for implementation of all action items. Track all action items to resolution
  • Review applicable audit reports and work closely with Safety and Health consultants to resolve outstanding issues
  • Review all employee reports of hazards identified and Suggestion Box submissions
  • Review all employee reports of “at risk” behavior
  • Provide recommendations to management
  • Annually review and update, as necessary, all current safety programs and policies that directly affect operations
  • Establish specific safety goals and objectives
  • Develop safety rules and policies for all operations
  • Develop and administer incentive programs to promote safety
  • Issue periodic reports, bulletins or tables to highlight safety performance and accomplishments
  • Maintain records of safety meetings and walk-around inspections

For more information contact us

Anthony Poston, ARM, AIMsafety, safety committee, OSHA, complianceComment