Occupational Health and Safety
When it comes to workplace safety, who is really responsible for ensuring that employees are safe? Since 2020, the Fluke Safety Survey has been digging into workers’ thoughts on occupational health and safety. Their 2022 survey results paint a clear picture of common trends in employee sentiment.
Who is in Charge of Safety?
Since the Fluke Survey’s inception, the big question – “Who is the most responsible for workplace safety?” – has had the same response; workers. At 38% of the vote for most responsible, it is clear that employees recognize that a good deal of risk or unsafe conditions come from worker-based issues, such as disregarding PPE or not keeping up with safety training and policies. Human Resources won out with the largest percentage of votes in the “least responsible” section – a whopping 85.5% of participants put the smallest amount of burden on HR.
Regardless of precisely who carries responsibility for workplace safety, nearly all workers – 95% – believe more can be done to improve the safety of their workplace, and a further 97.5% of respondents agree that workplace safety is connected to a strong culture of safety within a company. Gaining buy-in from the shop floor through to the offices of upper management seem crucial to building an effective OHSMS.
How to Improve?
In this year’s study, over half (55.9%) of respondents expressed that they themselves had ideas on how to improve their workplaces. This points to an organic source of new ideas for management; after all, don’t employees know the risks they face the best? Listening to input from those who know the work (and those who face the risk in question) may be the best, most direct way to build an OHSMS that helps everyone.
Certification for Occupational Health & Safety
ISO 45001 is the most widely known global standard for OHSMS certification, having fully replaced OHSAS 18001 in 2021. A dynamic, process-based standard that considers both risks and opportunities, ISO 45001 can be a great addition to any company regardless of their current certification status. The use of the Annex SL structure found in other major ISO standards means that ISO 45001 is easily integrated with certificates such as ISO 9001 or 14001 to provide a ground-up system throughout a company’s framework.
If your OHSMS needs improvement, or you’d like to learn more about ISO 45001 certification, reach out to PJR today – call (248) 358-3388 or visit www.pjr.com.