August 15-21, 2022 is OSHA's sixth annual Safe + Sound Week. This week is a national campaign dedicated to raising awareness for workplace safety and health. It encourages management leadership, worker participation, and a systematic approach to finding and fixing hazards.
According to the agency, successful safety and health programs can proactively identify and manage workplace hazards before they cause injury or illness, which improves sustainability and the bottom line.
Safety is best displayed by example. Safe + Sound challenges management to lead by example and show their workers that they put safety first! After this step, it’s time to get workers involved. They have the best knowledge of potential hazards on the job. This is all about listening to your workers and finding a solution to these hazards. Last year, more than 5,300 businesses helped to raise awareness about workers' health and safety!
Some ways that management can demonstrate their commitment are:
Develop and communicate a safety and health policy statement.
Providing resources needed to implement and operate the program.
Factoring safety and health into operational planning and decisions.
Recognize and reward safety and health contributions and achievements
You can have workers participate in:
Developing the initial plan.
Reporting incidents so they can be investigated.
Analyzing hazards that are a part of routine jobs, task, and processes.
Conducting site inspections and new hires.
Evaluating program performance and identifying ways to improve it.
To have a systematic approach means:
Involving workers.
Reviewing all available information about hazards that might be present.
Conducting inspections to identify new or emerging hazards.
Investigating incidents to find a root cause.
Checking that existing controls are intact and remain effective.
Keep your workplace Safe + Sound! If you need any assistance preparing for Safe + Sound week, STEP would be happy to help. Contact us at (270) 753-6529 to assist in your needs.