Workplace safety and compliance with OSHA regulations
SMART TECH puts a particular emphasis on ensuring workplace safety. The company has worked out a consistent safety plan that targets the following objectives: ensuring housekeeping compliance that makes at least 90%, holding monthly meetings to discuss the safety problems and alternative solutions, reporting and examining all the incidents in a timely manner, involving high-qualified safety professionals, and organizing relevant audits.
In order to comply with the OSHA regulations, the corporate safety strategy relies upon a series of principles. First and foremost, it considers critical to ensure consistent safety communication – otherwise stated, the company sees to the fact that all the employees are aware of the safety requirements and standards. Secondly, it is assumed important that all the employees perform their contribution to improving the safety.
Thus, they are welcomed to share their vision of the situation, report the current flaws and provide alternative solutions that the management is obliged to consider. In addition, the management makes significant efforts to establish the safety recognition. In other words, it is considered crucial that employees are motivated to maintain the relevant safety and seek to improve it. Therefore, the safety principles are communicated to the employees through team talks and discussions. Moreover, a special focus is put on the timely safety reports. Thus, the company collaborates closely with external parties such as safety officers and relies upon their expert assessment (McKinnon, 2013).
It should be pointed out that the company realizes that an efficient safety policy implies additional costs and reduced productivity. In the meantime, it believes that in a long-term perspective, workplace safety is likely to be beneficial as it will help to avoid turnover, maintain the employee’s loyalty and enhance their commitment. Therefore, the company admits its obligation to pay workplace compensation in case of an incident and cover the expenses for work-related injuries and illnesses. Therefore, from the financial perspective, the company regards effective safety policy as a way to reduce the cost of injuries (Hopwood & Thompson, 2006, p.45).
SMART TECH Safety Training Manual
General Safety
- Ensure that the floors are clean and not slippery.
- Report all the items that need to be fixed or repaired immediately.
- Workplace smoking and alcohol consumption are forbidden.
- Equipment should not be placed in hallways and corridors.
- It is restricted to use chairs as ladders.
- Power tools should not be left on the floor or other surfaces where they might create a hazard.
Employees’ Responsibilities
- Study the OSHA requirements carefully.
- Follow the OSHA standards as well as the corporate safety rules while performing any activity at the workplace.
- Report all the hazardous incidents, potentially dangerous breakdowns, and other risky conditions to the Safety Department.
- Report any job-related accidents to the management.
Accident Reporting and Analysis
- It is crucial that all the workplace accidents are documented in a timely manner and reported to the management. The essential corrections cannot be implemented unless an accident is reported.
- Employees might choose any manner to report an accident, though it is generally recommended to fix it in the relevant Accident Book.
- The Accident Book should be regularly examined by the safety committee.
- All the accident evidence should be preserved and overviewed in order to improve the safety conditions.
- The Accident Book data should be monitored by both corporate duty holders and external parties.
Reference List
Hopwood, D., & Thompson, S. (2006). Workplace Safety: A Guide for Small and Midsized Companies. New York, New York: John Wiley & Sons.
McKinnon, R.C. (2013). Changing the Workplace Safety Culture. New York, New York: CRC Press.