Safety Committee Basic Training

MODULE 1: ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

You don't have to climb a mountain and sit on a big rock for six days to gain a vision about the safety committee or your place in it. But, it's important that you do develop a clear vision about how you and the safety committee can most effectively compliment the mission of your company.

The purpose of a safety committee is to bring workers and managers together to achieve and maintain a safe, healthful workplace. It’s easy to start a safety committee, but to develop an effective one — one that achieves and maintains a safe, healthful workplace — requires workers and managers committed to achieving that goal. If you're an employer, you may be thinking “That’s easier said than done, because I'm also committed to achieving and maintaining a successful business.” Can a safety committee help your business survive in the real world?

Yes!

The most effective safety committees function as a "profit center activity" by finding solutions to problems that cause workplace accidents, illnesses, and injuries. Fewer accidents, injuries, and illnesses mean lower workers’ compensation claims costs and insurance premium rates. Successful businesses have safe, healthful workplaces.

Once you understand the role, purpose, and function of your safety committee, you will be better able to start, develop, and maintain a successful team. So let's take a look at the proper role of the safety committee in the workplace.

Just who do you think you are?

Look up "role" in the dictionary and you'll find something like:

• The characteristic and expected social behavior of an individual.
• A position or title.

Roles help us to understand how we should behave and what we should be doing as an individual or as a member of a group. The position you have right now in your company has some sort of title that identifies your role, duties and responsibilities, and is accompanied by a certain level of status. Attached to your role are established behaviors and activities that are appropriate for that position.

Each of the following are common position titles that have established sets of expected behaviors and activities: mother, father, scout leader, policeman, super hero, or president.

What's the role of the safety committee?

It's not too difficult to list and describe the personal roles you assume, but what about the role of the safety committee as a group within your company. One way of looking at the role of the safety committee is to think of it as a consultant firm that would be hired by your employer to:

• Identify workplace hazardous conditions and work practices;
• Determine the root causes for those conditions and practices;
• Develop solutions and submit recommendations to correct problems and improve systems; and
• Monitor the progress of recommendations and the quality of safety programs and activities.

It's important to note that none of these responsibilities requires the safety committee to actually control safety programs or people. When the safety committee assumes the role of a consultant group within a company, it is not expected to control a budget, safety training, purchasing equipment, etc. These responsibilities are more properly carried out by the line organization (employees, supervisors, managers, CEO, owners).

The Purpose of the Safety Committee

Armed with insight into the role of the safety committee, let's take a look at what its purpose(s) might be. A quick review of our friendly dictionary once again defines purpose as a desired or intended result or effect. The purpose of the safety committee might also be viewed as its mission. Purpose reflects what the safety committee does to fulfill its role. Let's see what the rule says...

Safety Committees — Purpose 437-001-0765(1) The purpose of a safety committee is to bring workers and management together in a non-adversarial, cooperative effort to promote safety and health in each workplace. A safety committee assists the employer and makes recommendations for change.

One of the most important responsibilities is to promote a non-adversarial relationship. Increase trust between labor and management. Read W. Edwards Deming's book, Out of the Crisis. He details 14 elements of Total Quality Management (TQM). He states that for any sound management system to work, you must first eliminate fear in the workplace (element 8) before embarking upon the other elements. Safety people need to be sure that their actions are reducing fear (adversarial relationship) in the workplace.

As a consultant group, one of the most important jobs of the safety committee representative is to act as a liaison: to receive and report employee safety concerns, and provide regular feedback to the employee regarding the status or response to those concerns. Not providing adequate feedback to employees may render a safety committee ineffective, in the view of employees, in its ability to communicate and effectively carry out its purpose.

The safety committee also performs consultative duties upstream to management. This is done primarily through the written recommendation process. It's interesting that through the years, one of the most common "complaints" I've heard from students in our workshops is that management fails to provide adequate support to the safety committee. My question is , "What's the safety committee doing to earn management commitment?"

Just because the employer is required by law to form a safety committee does not necessarily mean the employer is going to invest much time and money in the committee. To get top management's respect and commitment, the safety committee must earn it. The safety committee must provide management with useful information so that they can make informed business decisions. Effective recommendations educate management and result in greater respect and commitment to the safety committee.

What are some of the major purposes of the safety committee and its members?

Let's take a brief look at some of the safety committee's most important purposes:

• Help protect the employee by receiving, reporting, responding to their safety concerns in timely manner, and by being a safety leader through example;
• Help protect the employer by writing effective recommendations that propose solutions to surface and root causes, and state a strong argument for taking corrective action by emphasizing the costs vs benefits...the bottom line;
• Help the employer maintain a safe and helpful workplace about safety by evaluating and assisting in developing an effective comprehensive safety management system;
• Help the employer create a "culture of consequences" by evaluating and assisting in developing effective accountability and recognition/reward processes; and
• Bring labor and management together in a cooperative effort and on a regular basis to discuss and solve safety problems.
  

All of these purpose statements emphasize the safety committees responsibility to assist, not actually do all the work for the employer. Management may be able to delegate responsibility for safety programs to the safety committee, but legally, accountability for workplace safety is placed firmly on the shoulders of the employer.

Employer's Responsibilities 437-001-0760 (a) The employer shall see that workers are properly instructed and supervised in the safe operation of any machinery, tools, equipment, process, or practice which they are authorized to use or apply. This rule shall not be construed to require a supervisor on every part of an operation nor to prohibit workers from working alone. (b) The employer shall take all reasonable means to require employees: (A) To work and act in a safe and healthful manner; (B) To conduct their work in compliance with all applicable safety and health rules; (C) To use all means and methods, including but not limited to, ladders, scaffolds, guardrails, machine guards, safety belts and lifelines, that are necessary to safely accomplish all work where employees are exposed to a hazard; and (D) Not to remove, displace, damage, destroy, or carry off any safety device, guard, notice or warning provided for use in any employment or place of employment while such use is required by applicable safety and health rules.

OSHA cites employers, not safety committees. The responsibility and accountability for safety and health rests with line managers from top to bottom because they control workplace.

Again, to be most effective, the safety committee need not control programs, activities, budgets, etc. The committee's primary purpose is to assist the employer by problem solving and communicating.

Purpose and function...what's the difference?

Purpose and function are related terms, but they differ significantly in meaning. Our dictionary definition states that function is something closely related to another thing and dependent on it for its existence, value, or significance.

Whereas purpose reflects the intended result or effect, function is the actual result, whether intended or unintended. Function is dependent on the effectiveness of the attempt to carry out a purpose.

Good intentions do not guarantee results

If the safety committee does not effectively carry out its intended purpose, it may actually (and unintentionally) function to hurt the company's safety and health effort.

For instance, the safety committee may intend to communicate effectively with management, but if its members do not have the knowledge, skills, or abilities to accomplish this purpose, the unintended or actual result may be a dismal failure to communicate with management.

Function can be considered a dependent variable. It is dependent upon the effectiveness of a group to follow through with its stated purpose. The safety committee may have the best intentions, but if it cannot follow through effectively with its plans, it may actually function to harm a safety program or activity rather than help it. Without education and training, safety committee members may not have the basic knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform their responsibilities. Given proper education and training, the safety committee if more likely to function to carry out its intended purpose.

So, why is it so important to understand the relationship between purpose and function? The safety committee may be feeling very positive about the design of a program or process: they may have wonderful goals and objectives that support those programs or processes. But, if the safety committee does not have the knowledge, skills, and ability, for whatever reason, to meet those goals, it will have great difficulty in carrying out its stated purpose. The safety committee may unintentionally function to fail, or fall short of meeting its purpose.

Last words

Good job. I hope the information in this module has given you a better understanding of your role as a member of the safety committee. These concepts are actually not too difficult to understand, but that understanding is absolutely essential to safety committee effectiveness.

Let's Review

1. The most effective safety committees perform the role of a ___________?

a. Cop
b. Consultant
c. Controller
d. Communicator

2. Which of the items listed is the least appropriate activity for the safety committee?

a. Purchase personal protective equipment
b. Make recommendations to improve safe procedures
c. Observe/report hazardous conditions and unsafe behaviors
d. Help the employer develop interest in workplace safety

3. Complete the following statement: A primary purpose of the safety committee is to...

a. enforce safety rules.
b. make sure everyone obeys safety rules.
c. identify hazards and make recommendations.
d. do safety for the employer.

4. The "function" of the safety committee reflects what its "intended effect" is on workplace safety.

a. True
b. False

5. If the safety committee is not properly trained it might function to _________ the safety management program?

a. help
b. hurt

6. The "Purpose" of the safety committee describes a(n) ___________ result?

a. actual
b. unintended
c. intended
d. expected

7. The "function" of the safety committee is a dependent variable because it is tied to the safety committee's ability to fulfill its purpose.

a. True
b. False

8. OR-OSHA rules require members of the safety committee to enforce rules.

a. True
b. False

9. The safety committee should promote all of the following, except?

a. Adversarial relationships
b. Safety and health in the workplace
c. Leadership by example
d. Communications between labor and management

10. According to Safety Committees — Purpose 437-001-0765(1), safety committees are to __________________ and makes recommendations for change.

a. baby-sit for the employer
b. meets twice a month
c. assist the employer
d. write tickets for safety infractions

Answers to the quiz. I don't grade the quiz questions. They are just for your review.

Congratulations on completing the first module! I'm sure you'll agree understanding basic safety committee requirements is critical to its success. Continue on to the next module to learn more about how to get the safety committee started. If you have any questions or comments, just drop me an email at allen.e.freauff@state.or.us.