Safety audits are designed to collect key information regarding the effectiveness of a company’s safety management programs. These audits are crucial to ensuring compliance with safety legislation – like OSHA regulations, for example.
However, these audits serve far more important purposes; like monitoring the health of a company’s workforce, identifying weaknesses in safety programs, guiding corrective actions, and improving processes, productivity, and morale.
Your organization should have audits conducted for your safety management programs at least once a year. Here’s why:
1. Safety Audits Ensure Compliance
You should be sure that if OSHA were to show up to your company’s doorstep tomorrow for an inspection that you would pass without a single citation. Don’t fall into any form of confirmation bias by convincing yourself that you would pass without evidence. Conduct a safety audit to determine the levels of safety standards your organization is currently meeting.
That means establishing criteria that should at least meet minimal mandated requirements for OSHA compliance. However, we highly recommend extending the value of a safety audit by creating stricter requirements designed to thoroughly prod your current safety management programs for weaknesses. Which leads to #2 on our list:
2. Safety Audits Improve Safety Management Programs
When you care about the health and safety of your employees, you do more than meet just the bare minimum. The goal for businesses today should always be zero injuries – and that kind of goal can only be reached through strict safety audits designed to actually improve safety management programs, and not just reach compliance.
This includes a safety audit designed for growth with features like unbiased participation, cross-department involvement, strategic/strict criteria, future benchmarks and projections, and many more. Audits designed for improving safety management programs may seem complicated on the surface, but every resource put into an effective safety audit equates to a safer workplace. So, squeeze every bit of value from your audits as you can with improvement in mind.
3. 3rd Party Audits Prevent Bias
One of the most crucial underlying criteria for the first two points is that these safety audits be conducted without bias. Yes, this can be done without external help from a professional safety management firm, but we find that this can lead to a few issues.
Regarding the compliance standards of a safety audit, no one is better equipped than safety professionals trained to understand, interpret, identify, and implement safety programs in compliance with up-to-date OSHA laws. If you want clear-cut audits with the same compliance standards as an OSHA inspection, hire professionals without preexisting work biases. Safety audits work best in conjunction with employee involvement and unbiased professional reporting.
NOTE: SAFETY AUDITS ARE NOT REGULAR FACILITY INSPECTIONS
Just to be on the safe side, we want to remind you that safety audits are not the same as regular facility and equipment inspections. Regular safety inspections should be carried out on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis depending on your industry and unique needs. Keep keeping your workers safe!
If you’re ready to begin conducting professional audits designed to improve your safety management programs today, don’t hesitate to reach out to us by phone at 630.759.9908 or by email at Info@Optimum-USA.com.
