Employee Safety and Health Systems: Cutting Injuries Using the Team Approach

Understand the importance of having a safety committee in your workplace.

As more employers consider implementation of formal safety and health management systems, either voluntarily or to conform to some state OSHA regulatory requirements, methods of increasing employee involvement may present challenges. In a union workplace, the structure, implementation, and staffing of safety and health committees may require new bargaining, or could raise legal issues under the NLRA. In open shop workplaces, encouraging volunteerism may be a stumbling block. This material helps the persons responsible for safety and health management understand the role of employee empowerment in improving workplace safety performance. This topic will discuss utilization of safety and health committees, creating of labor/management audit teams, engagement of hourly workers in training and development of safe work practice protocols (e.g., JHA and toolbox talks). It will also explain how enhancing employee participant in safety activities is critical for companies that benchmark to ANSI and ISO standards, and how this can also benefit OSHA compliance.