Employee Involvement Options

Employees can become directly involved in maintaining worksite safety and health through several different types of activities that may either already exist or can be started as part of an employee safety and health program. These activities include  

Site safety requirements and standard operating procedures development 

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The most important element of any effort to engage and empower the workforce, and drive a company s culture toward world-class lean or safety, is communications. Effective communications are critical because it is through communications that you can gain trust. And only when you gain trust will the culture shift toward the intended direction. The definition of empowerment that I most often use is the downward flow of information. Therefore, what information can be provided to guide a so-so safety program, with minimal employee involvement, into one that other plants will want to benchmark Some of the topics listed below were already mentioned elsewhere in the book, but to fully understand the depth of safety communications available, I will restate your options. 

In an effort to be proactive, you identify hazards and involve employees in the identification of hazards to help prevent injuries. We must accept the reality that despite your best planning and prevention efforts, injuries can occur. It is how you manage the injury, if it happens, that matters. In such a case, you must be prepared to deal with medical emergencies. If you do not have a nurse on staff, then you have to be prepared to make other arrangements. First aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) assistance should be available on every shift. This is the second option under the OSHA standards (29 CFR 1910.151(b)) for workplaces that are not close to medical facilities OSHA has interpreted this rule to mean within a five-minute response time [1]. 

As a rule, if you have contract personnel onsite on an ongoing basis, you should find a way to involve them at an appropriate level. Probably your best option is to observe them, then provide feedback as you would any other employee. In some cases you may want to be more aggressive with contract personnel than with your own employees. For example, you might be less likely to announce observations in advance, and you may not give these employees the right to opt out of observations. In some cases you may also want to provide the feedback to the contractor employees supervisor. 

While some of the systems described above involve written forms, safety and health employee program managers and safety professionals or other appropriate individuals should feel free to design their own hazard reporting forms tailored to their worksite and employees. The flexibility in design can allow for voluntary anonymity by making employee self-identiflcation optional. A box for the forms should be installed along with a specific location for the forms. 

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