Safety Audit

A safety audit is a structured process whereby information is collected relating to the efficiency, effectiveness, and reliability of a company’s total health and safety management system.

Safety audits serve two broad purposes:

1. They are routinely conducted in order to determine whether the company is in compliance with safety legislation. These can be performed by representatives of a regulatory body or by the company itself.
2. They are used to identify weaknesses in their safety programs and processes. These audits are then used as a guide for designing safety plans or to identify corrective actions that should be undertaken.

Work site audits also provide an evaluation of compliance to Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards relating to ergonomics, respirator use, hearing conservation, blood-borne pathogens and use of personal protective equipment. Ergonomics, the study of work and the relationships of carious stressors on the individual, can be identified through the building audits. The objective of ergonomics is to adapt the job and workplace to the worker by designing tasks, workstations, tools, and equipment to the abilities of the worker. Conducting a single annual comprehensive safety audit can actually hide the facts and hazards that you may want to discover. The single annual audit approach may tend to create a safety “ramp up” effect, by managers and supervisors, as the audit time approaches.

A better approach may be to schedule various specific safety audits throughout the year on a ten month schedule. The eleventh month should be reserved for a comprehensive annual audit. Consider using the same topic schedule for your annual refresher training program.

What safety audits are not

Safety Audits are primarily to check the effectiveness of the various programs, they do not take the place of regular facility inspections. Facility safety inspections for hazards and their control should be performed on a weekly basis by supervisors and on a monthly basis by management.

The big four

There are four basic questions a safety audit should answer. The persons or team designated to conduct the audits should take a fact finding approach to gather data. These auditors should be familiar with both the company program and the various local, state and federal requirements.

All safety audit comments, recommendations and corrective actions should focus on these four questions:

1. Does the program cover all regulatory and best industry practice requirements?
   
2. Are the program requirements being met?
3. Is there documented proof of compliance?
4. Is employee training effective – can and do they apply specific safe behaviors?