Ever wondered what the responsibilities of a safety manager were? Steve Stephenson gives us some answers…
OSHA Safety Signs Best Practices Guides
The safety manager is an employer’s point man for worker safety. This means that the safety manager’s responsibilities start with ensuring that all of the employer’s OSHA mandated responsibilities are met. The following are five of the main responsibilities OSHA places on employers:
- Provide a workplace that is free from serious safety and health hazards.
- Ensure that the workplace is monitored and is fully in compliance with all applicable OSHA standards, rules and regulations.
- Use labels, signs, posters, floor marking, and color coding to warn employees about potential hazards.
- Monitor the workplace to ensure employees:
- Have and use safe tools and equipment.
- Tools and equipment are properly maintained.
- Ensure that safe operating procedures are established, maintained, and communicated to employees.
In addition, the safety manager is usually the person responsible for ensuring the company is in compliance with OSHA employer requirements. These types of requirements include:
- Reporting fatal accidents, or any accident that results in the hospitalization of three or more employees, to the nearest OSHA office within eight hours.
- If the company is not exempt, or partially exempt from the OSHA recordkeeping requirements, the safety manager ensures that records of work-related injuries and illnesses are maintained. To be partially exempt an employer must meet one of the following requirements:
- Have ten or fewer workers, or
- Be a type of business that OSHA has classified as a lower-hazard industry.
- Ensure medical examinations and training are provided as required by OSHA standards.
- Ensure the required OSHA poster is posted in a prominent location.
- Provide the names of the authorized employee representatives, who may be asked to accompany an OSHA compliance officer during an inspection, to the OSHA compliance officer.
- Ensure OSHA citations, and abatement verification documents, are posted at or near the work area where the accident happened. Each citation must remain posted until the violation has been corrected, or for three working days, whichever is longer.
- Ensure any violations cited by OSHA as a result of an OSHA inspection are corrected by the deadline set in the OSHA citation, and submit the required abatement verification documentation.
Responsibilities Of A Safety Manager – Getting The Job Done
With the responsibilities of a safety manager encompassing such a broad range, how do they accomplish all of this? The following are some of the functions that are the responsibility of a safety manager, and that result in compliance with OSHA requirements. In larger organizations safety assistants will be responsible for some of these functions. In a smaller organization the owner, or HR manager, may be responsible for safety.
The responsibilities of a safety manager may include:
- Participating in workplace safety and health planning meetings.
- Ensuring managers and supervisors have the appropriate safety and health; accident prevention; and investigation training.
- Ensure that managers/supervisors provide safety training and information to workers.
- Providing leadership in developing measures and practices that that prevent accidents and ensure compliance with OSHA standards. This includes:
- Continuously monitor the workplace for hazardous safety and health conditions.
- Ensure safety and health hazards are corrected, eliminated or guarded.
- Assessing engineering controls, administrative controls, and PPE on an on-going basis.
- Assisting in the investigation of accidents. This includes:
- Identifying hazardous situations that are associated with the accident.
- Having the authority to:
- Stop and prevent unsafe actions
- Stop the use of unsafe equipment and tools.
- Stop work and/or have employees leave a work area.
- Investigating all close calls and other safety-related incidents that have occurred within the accident area.
- Ensure the results of safety inspections are documented; monitoring the investigation of accidents and injuries; ensuring that corrective actions are taken; and providing recommendations for ways to prevent similar accidents.
- Ensure that all accident reports are recorded in a timely, complete, and accurate manner.
Overall, the responsibilities of a safety manager include anything required to ensure complete compliance with OSHA standards, and for maintaining a safe and healthy workplace. What this means will be different in each workplace. At a minimum it requires familiarity with OSHA standards and implementing management practices to ensure compliance with those requirements.
Responsibilities Of A Safety Manager – Safety Signs and Labels
OSHA requires that signs and labels be used to provide warnings about safety and health hazards. But signs and labels do more than that. They identify equipment (so the right equipment is used), provide operating instructions, and direct workers safely to their destinations.
One of the responsibilities of a safety manager is to ensure that durable, clear and effective signs and labels are used. The best way to accomplish this is by using a label printer and tough-tested labeling supplies.
Written by Steve Stephenson June 2013
Read more at: http://www.labelingproducts.com/articles/safety-manager-responsibilities.php#ixzz2Y7sN5xPj
