Safety Committees??

Dianna

How many of my fellow Forum members have safety committees? If so, how are they structured (exempt and non-exempt employees, only non-exempt, etc.)? Do you feel the structure you have works? If so, why? If not, why not?

Another question, how do you promote safety at your company? Prizes? Rewards? Time off?

Think that I have listed enough questions for one thread? I agree. Thanks for your input!

Cinderella

We have a safety committee. It includes one exempt and one non exempt from each department. HR Manager is chair, someone usually volunteers for minute keeping. Take monthly tours around the facility to make sure all areas are being tended to. We have a safety suggestion box and that helps too.

Paul in Cannon Beach

We also have a safety committee (I seem to be a lifetime member). We follow OSHA guidelines for how the committee is weighted with management/non-management staff. We meet once a month. We consider ourselves an advisory committee rather than a police force. We do not offer safety rewards at this time but expect that good safety practices are a reward unto themselves.

We have quarterly walk-a-rounds and also show safety videos from time to time to promote safety. You can rent videos free from OSHA or often from your WC insurer.

[email]paulknoch@hotmail.com[/email]

March22Collector

We are manufacturing, and have a safety committee. Our safety committee is comprised of 7 employees, all exempt. A different member of the safety committee does a safety inspection every day, in a department that has been randomly selected (for a total of 5 inspections a week). Our safety inspection sheet includes such things as Ergonomics, PPE, Hazardous Communications, Housekeeping, Tobacco/Smoking regulations, and so on. We also have a place on the safety inspection to ask an employee, at random, if they know where their fire exit is, what BBP's are, where their MSDS's are, what LO/TO is and where is the spill kit. Of course we have the department supervisor sign off on this after every inspection and correct the problem areas immediately if possible. Each week in our safety meeting we review all the inspections to see what areas need attention. We also hand out printed photos every week that show employees in unsafe conditions, and have the members of the safety committee try to find the safety infractions in the photos; such as an employee standing on the top rung of a ladder, or a fire exit blocked by boxes, etc. This seems to keep the safety committee members thinking and aware. Overall, I like the set-up we have.

Paul-What do you mean by "We follow OSHA guidelines for how the committee is weighted with management/non-management staff."? Am I missing something? Are we required to have non-management staff as part of our safety committee?

Sunny

I am in a mfg. environment and have a safety committee. Members include one hourly employee from each plant department, myself (HR Mgr.) and the manager in charge of maintenance and facilities. We ask the hourly members to act as dept. representatives and address the safety concerns they raise. We do not have an incentive program but I have run them in the past. They can all be effective but since people get bored you almost have to change them at least every two years. My biggest success (40% reduction in incidents and costs) came from a department/shift based awards program for no lost time accidents. We did it in three-month increments with prize books of increasing value each quarter the department completed without a lost time accident. After a few years we switched to a safey bingo program which was also effective.

I believe safey incentives work but they have to be closely monitored and clearly explained.

sonny

Our safety committee is composed mainly of supervisors although there is union representation. Like Paul, it seems no matter my job or title, I always end up there. We have a topic each month, ususally with a video..the goal is the supervisers then take it back to the field. some topics are mandatory ie MSDS, but we throw in others like dealing with stress. We review the accidents that result in WC injuries and if action can be taken to correct the cause of the injury, we make sure that occurs. We should do inspections, but at this time, don't. I'm not a believer in rewards as you will find it can get competitive and folks will not report things they should. We do try to recognize depts. who have an accident free year, but just verbal recognition. Safety suggestion boxes can be good if they are checked and people see that action is taken. We meet monthly. We are not an enforcing body, but do make recommendations. .ie requested the boss put out a memo regarding seat belt usuage. If I could emphasize and do more of one thing it would be TRAINING, TRAINING, TRAINING

Riley

I work for a cattle feeding/grain elevator company. We actually have a diretor of safety/operations. I am new to HR and this organization, but I have a feeling we will work very closely together. He takes care of the OSHA regualtions, reporting and training as well as enforcing any safety policies. He is usually traveling around to one of our twelve locations doing an inspection or training. We currently do not have an award program, but its on my to do list.

jules2001

We have a safety committee in our production environment and I will always, at least, be a member. We have half exempt and half non-exempt on the committee. We try to have one supervisor and one non-exempt from each production shift and one or the other from other departments (drivers, etc.). This works and I believe that is the OSHA requirement. We meet monthly and have a notetaker. GM always attends meetings, but isnt on committe this year. We try to do some type of training each month - some OSHA, (MSDS, Lockout/Tagout) and some basic safety (managing stress). We choose 2 members each month to walkthrough and report any safety issues and bring to meeting.
We do not currently have awards programs. We have the running debate of whether it would make people not report things vs. it would create more awareness. Each member has a t-shirts with company name and 2002 safety committee so that other employees are aware of who members are. We do not require them to wear them or to wear at any certain time.

Gillian

We have a committee that is chaired by our Safety and Environmental Health Coordinator. The membership is composed of one person from each building, and most are non-exempt. Most of our safety activity revolves around disaster planning (earthquake preparedness)and laboratory safety (hazardous materials). Safety videos are built into our new employee orientation program and the Coordinator periodically sends out material to employees over the intranet, conducts periodic "empty out the building sessions" and he spends a lot of time in the laboratories keeping up with what the professors are doing.

Lola815

we have a safety committee that is comprised of 10 employees with alternates (someone in HR is always on the committee). It is about half and half with the exempted and non-exempted. we meet together at least once a month, and have company wide safety meetings at least once quarterly. we also put safety announcements in our monthly company newletter.

our best safety incentive is we have a lost time poster that says how many days we have gone without a lost time accident. for some reason, no one wants to be the one to make the numbers go back to zero. we have gone a couple of years now without a lost time accident. we have had a few minor accidents, but no lost time accidents. We did a few pizza parties to recongize what a great job the employees have been doing at staying safety conscience. food is always appreciated!

hrqueen

Hi Dianna
We are a small manufacturing site and we do have a pro-active safety team (committee). We have one manager on the team who is the Safety Administrator, one office employee, and four production (union) employees from various departments.

The safety team has input into the monthly safety training performed at our site. It also performs the monthly safety audits of the site, develops occasional safety contests, and helps decide on what safety incentive programs will be presented each year.

This year (and last) we give a $10 Walmart gift certificate each quarter to every employee when the company as a whole passes the monthly safety audit for the quarter. This is based on a calendar quarter. And when we have had no last-time accidents for 90 days we take everyone out to lunch. Our employees really seem to like both of these programs and our safety incidents have decreased significantly over the last four years.

cindyp

We have Safety Committee's at each of our locations comprised of mostly non-exempt employees. Safety Video's are part of New Employee Orientation. The committee meets bi-monthly and reviews any employee and customer accidents. We are a retail setting. We don't have an awards program.

KOlson

I work in an electric cooperative. We have a safety committee made up of two office personnel, two line personnel, and one apprentice. They are volunteer positions and all are for 3-year terms except for the apprentice that is a one-year term. They meet monthly, elect a Chairman and Secretary to takes minutes of the meetings. The minutes are reviewed at Board meetings in case there is Board action needed for any safety suggestions made by the committee. Inspections of our buildings are done 1-2 times a year. The committee also reviews all First Reports of Injury and any near-miss accidents. We never have a problem finding volunteers for this committee and it has been very beneficial to our cooperative.
Each year we hold a health fair as part of our Wellness Program. The Safety Committee serves breakfast that morning to anyone attending the health fair.
After an employee has served on the commitee for their term, they receive a gift. (Last I knew it was a large flashlight) We also have a plaque on the wall with all commitee's names on it for each year.
We try to send our committees to some sort of training while they are in term. The committee has been a great asset to our cooperative. I would recommend forming one to anyone.
K.Olson

Don D

Safety committees are something that sort of comes and goes in our manufacturing environment. We revitalized them about a year ago. With the expectation and goal of reducing accidents, we have a safety committee in each plant. The composition is one supervisory staff member and four hourly production workers all of whom are volunteers. The membership rotates quarterly among each of the three shifts and new members serve quarterly. They have a written (broad and general)mission established by the safety steering committee comprised of myself, the safety manager, the director of manufacturing, plant superintendents and VP of engineering/production. The committee appoints a scribe and has weekly 45 minute meetings on company time. They submit written minutes and really good suggestions for improvements. This has resulted in an awful lot of safety improvements that management had either overlooked or had not thought important. We get them to focus on the things that will reduce the number of accidents. They are also given copies of our monthly spread sheets that identify specific accidents and incidents and lost days so they can focus on safety as it relates to specifically what is occuring in our plants. This keeps down the number of shotgun suggestions.

choffman

I wear the Director, HR & RM hat for three separate companies simultaneously, a town, a district and a property owners association. We are faced with many interesting challenges, among which has been ellimiation of the us and them attitude of ther employees of each company.

To make matters even more interesting we are located in a ski resort and one of our companies operates a variety of transportation lifts. The ski industry historically experiences a high rate of worker's comp injuries and associated claims costs.

We implemented a safety committee for several reasons. We wanted to facilitate healthy interaction between the employees of each company. We wanted to empower the employees to take the responsibility for their own safety and that of their co-workers and our guests. We wanted to facilitate a decline in our sky rocketing worker's comp costs.

Our safety committee has accomplished all of the above. It is composed of front line employees, most of whom are non-exempt personnel. Every department in all three companies has a safety committee representative and the committee meets a minmum of once per month to examine issues of their own choosing. They also review injuries and do their own investigations when necessary.

Our safety committee has implemented a safety rewards program. Each month, every employee in every injury free department receives a $10 coupon. The departments who do not receive these rewards have experienced decreased workers comp claims. The cost of the reward program is minimal compared to the saving we are seeing.

Carol CA

We are a manufacturing company and have created employee-run safety teams. These teams each have about 15-20 hourly employees from production, maintenance, shipping/receiving and quality. They elect a team leader and a safety rep. The team leader runs the meetings which last 1/2 hour once a month. They view a safety video, take a little quiz to make sure they were listening, and then discuss safety issues that the various team members bring to the meeting. Everyone who brings a safety issue to the team meeting is entered into a drawing where a member from each team has a choice of a T-shirt, flashlight, etc. The safety rep. then attends another meeting at the end of the month where we pull together all the safety reps. along with the Plant Manager, HR, R&D, and Production Supervisors. As a group we then discuss the safety issues brought up in the meetings and any other safety issues in the plant. The safety rep can then feed this information back to the team at the next meeting.

Our intent was for employees to take ownership of their safety. It is their responsibility to stay safe.

We did have a monetary safety incentive to reward quarters with no accidents, but this was discontinued this year due to budget cuts. We still have a drawing for 5 free floating holidays (1 day for each of 5 winners) and 5 winners of a gift (ie: T-shirt, flashlight, travel mug, 6-pack cooler, etc.). In order to be eligible for this drawing you need to have attended all 3 safety meetings in the quarter. Our focus is on training and attending the meetings.

System

I work in a public library. We have a Safety Committee and it has evolved into a good group. We put out a call for volunteers each year. We have a mix of management and other employees. We meet once a month. We plan a Safety Days recognition in the month of June. There is a kickoff day when we have reps from our health insurance co, Weight Watchers, etc. come out. We also host workshops on stress, health, etc. Over the years the members of the committee have worked on various projects - one year some very talented folks produced a safety video. Serious subject, but they put a very humourous twist to it and even though it is obviously an amateur production, our employees love it and had a lot of fun working on it. We try to have contests...come up with the best Safety Slogan; we give certificates of achievement for departments with no injuries for a certain period of time, etc. It's a lot of work, ultimately, for HR, but it's worth it. We have reduced our injuries significantly, just by having folks be more aware of their surroundings.

If you need any more info, please e-mail me at [email]fountain.carla@ocls.info[/email]

valentine

We have a safaety committee made up of non-exempt staff from each of our departments and the chair person is a rotating department director. Each department director is expected to chair the committee for one year and they get a bonus for doing so. It has worked very well. We have safety rounds in which committee members once a month go around looking for safety issues and then bring them up at the next meeting. We have received an award for having the least number of safety accidents and it has made non-exempt staff aware of potential safety issues, as well as Department Directors.