It is not uncommon to find safety
committee meetings boring, ineffec-
tive and without organization – a total waste of time. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Ineffective meetings result from employees and managers going through the motions to get another required meeting out of the way.
Effective safety committees must have organized meeting agendas and effective action plans in place after the meeting to ensure things get done. Without organized agendas, the meetings will be nothing more than a waste of time. When a safety committee leaves a meeting feeling that they have accomplished little or nothing, they will bring little or no interest to the next month’s safety meeting.
Before diving any deeper into agendas, let’s consider what is a smart safety committee structure. A good resource is the “Quick Guide to Safety Committees and Safety Meetings” published by the Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
The guide provides the following safety committee structure information:
Who can be a member of my safety committee?
Your safety committee must have an equal number of employer elected members and employee-elected (or volunteer) members.
• An employer-selected member can be a manager, supervisor, or any other employee management chooses to serve on the committee as its representative.
• Employees can elect another employee or a supervisor to represent them.
• If everyone on the committee agrees, there can be a majority of employee-elected members or volunteers.
Your safety committee must not have a majority of employer-selected members.
Safety committee members must:
• Agree on a chairperson.
• Serve a minimum of one year, when possible.
• Be compensated at their regular pay rates.
• Be trained in accident and incident investigation principles and know how to apply them.
• Be trained in hazard identification.
• Receive safety committee meeting minutes.
• Represent the major activities of the company.
How many members does my safety committee need?
• Membership depends on how many employees your business has.
• If your business has 20 or fewer employees, your committee needs at least two members.
• If your business has more than 20 employees, your committee needs at least four members.
Your local state’s OSHA office will have free educational materials and guidebooks that provide a wealth of information for safety committees. It is a good idea for managers and committee members to take advantage of these free materials. OSHA requirements may differ slightly from one state to another.
When I set up a new business client with the year ahead, I schedule each month with one or more of the required safety program components, training and/or topics. These topics give the safety committee a direction for their agenda.
First off, you need to keep in mind what OSHA requires safety committees to accomplish. This is an excerpt from an Oregon OSHA Fact Sheet “Safety Committees and Safety Meetings.”
What does my safety committee have to do?
• Meet monthly.
• Keep a record of each meeting for three years.
• Establish procedures for conducting quarterly workplace safety and health inspections.
• Work with you to establish accident investigation procedures that will identify and correct hazards.
• Establish a system for employees to report hazards.
• Establish a procedure for reviewing inspection reports.
• Evaluate all accident and incident investigations.
• Make safety committee meeting minutes available to all employees.
• Recommend ways to strengthen your business’s overall safety effort, and;
• Discuss safety concerns and any recent accidents, including what caused them and how they can be prevented.
These requirements alone provide your safety committee with plenty of topic material for their meeting agendas.
Now, let us take a look at what most general industry companies will have for required safety program components and training requirements that we can use for topics.
Required programs and training: hazard communication, globally harmonized system, and Safety Data Sheets; control of hazardous energy /lockout – tagout; fire safety, prevention, evacuation, and fire extinguisher operation; first aid emergencies & emergency plans; fall protection; personal protective equipment; equipment operation and safety; and workplace ergonomics.
Along with those programs and training topics, you can add a few alternates:
back safety, carbon monoxide monitoring and safety, driving and fleet safety, electrical safety, forklift operational safety, hazard awareness training, hot work, fall prevention, noise/decibel level monitoring, working in cold weather, or working in the summer heat.
After looking at what your safety committee is required to do, and add-in the list of safety program components, a safety committee can easily fill their calendar with topics for their agendas. With the list provided, even an office staff should be able to schedule a year’s safety committee’s agenda with topics. Then, for the most part, businesses that employ strictly office staff only need to meet quarterly. The rest of workplaces that fall under the more hazardous working environments of general industry; agriculture, construction, production, and wood products are required to meet a minimum of once per month, and are required additionally to complete quarterly safety inspections.
The quarterly safety inspections alone usually take up four of the twelve meetings, leaving the committee with just eight meetings without agenda topics. When I set up a safety committee’s year of agendas, I find it extremely difficult to get everything covered in one year. The safety committees I work with normally will have two topics for their month’s agenda, and that’s before reviewing any reported close calls, hazards, injuries or illnesses.
After organizing a year’s safety committee agendas, you can be certain that it will need to be changed, or adapted to fit the changing needs of the workplace. Safety committee agendas must be flexible, so as to provide for response to an event or need that arises. Things that can trigger agenda changes include a report of a workplace hazardous condition, actual workplace incident, process and equipment changes, and updates to OSHA standards.
Each and every safety committee meeting must be documented, and as stated previously, retained for a minimum of three years. Agendas can be simple; written on a piece of tablet paper, or you can make a template such as the one that I have designed:
Each meeting should start with old business, this will give the committee an opportunity to carry forward topics that need to be further addressed, and review last month’s topics. The most common mistake I see made by safety committees is that they fail to resolve or fully address a safety related issue, or follow up on safety concerns such as an outstanding items noted during a safety inspection. This is a very common problem found during an OSHA inspection.
Old business topics may be carried forward for several months because not every safety concern can be fully addressed in one meeting. Obviously, resolving an issue of a serious or life threatening hazard cannot be carried forward, or in some cases procrastinated upon. Such hazards must be addressed immediately.
Once the committee has addressed old business, the agenda can move onto new business. New business is where that particular month’s agenda topics are discussed.
The last item on the agenda should be to review any reported close calls, hazards or workplace accidents. This is one of the most important topics for your safety committee. No report should go unaddressed. A close call, hazard or accident report may require a lot of committee time and focus. And in the event of an accident, a workplace injury and illness investigation must be completed.
A safety committee can have all their meetings well organized, and be provided with all the needed tools and training to conduct a meeting effectively, and even meet OSHA standards, yet still be ineffective if committee members don’t take their jobs seriously. The outcome is the more important part of the meeting.
Each and every member of the safety committee must be a willing and committed member. No member should be forced to be part of the committee, or be part of the committee, if they don’t want to be. This can create poor morale within the committee and result in a negative outcome.
The other common cause of poor morale, or lack of effectiveness for a safety committee is when management is not committed to safety. Unfortunately, this is all too common. Insufficient management support can be the one most destructive influence on a safety committee. All safety committee meetings must be considered important to management. When a safety committee works hard to address a safety concern, and management fails to provide their support, the safety committee will become ineffective, and morale within the committee will fall.
Safety committees must provide, in writing, documentation of their recommendations for addressing hazards in the workplace to management. Upon receiving documented recommendations, management must respond within an acceptable time period. This time period should be no later than the next safety committee meeting.
Understandably, not every recommendation can be approved by management. There are certainly financial, processing, production, engineering, administrative, and even stock holder factors involved in the final decision. At the same time, management cannot allow these concerns to go unaddressed. Management must respond in writing to each and every recommendation.
Beyond just the requirements of the law, a safety committee is important for business reasons too. The safety committee is without a doubt the most important part of your injury and illness prevention program. When you give the safety committee the proper training, tools, support, and respect that they deserve, you will have a safer workplace, better morale, and a more desirable bottom line.
Editor’s Note: Jary Winstead is a safety consultant, author and trainer who serves a variety of industries including the forest products sector. He owns Work Safety Services LLC and can be reached at SAFEJARY@aol.com.
SAMPLE
Safety Meeting Minutes
Date: ____/____/____
Old Business
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____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
New Business
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
Reviewed Reported Close Calls
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
Notes
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
Members Present
_________________________ _________________________
_________________________ _________________________
_________________________ _________________________
_________________________ _________________________ _________________________ _________________________
