Building your own health and safety team can feel like building a house. You need the right bricks, the right mortar, the right tools, the right blueprints, and, of course, the right skills for the job. And like a house, every team is a little different than the next.
However, like a house, every successful EHS team is built on a strong foundation. And those strong foundations tend to be consistent between one house (er, program) and the next, regardless of your unique structure.
Here’s a look at three essential things you need to build your own safety team from the ground up.
Know Your Needs
First and foremost, you need to know your needs from your team of health and safety professionals. Think about what safety hazards you’re trying to counteract and what that means for a safety program.
For example, think about your industry. Are you in construction? Logistics? Oil and gas? All three of these industries may have some basic safety concerns in common, but as a whole, their hazards are quite different. As a consequence, their needs from a dept of health and safety are quite different.
In a logistics company, for example, the safety of your warehouse workers or drivers on the road are your two biggest concerns. In oil and gas, you’re worried about drilling sites and worker safety around industrial machinery. In construction, well, you’re worried about a little bit of everything.
Establish Documentation
Regardless of your industry, all industries have a few core needs from their dept of safety. One of the big ones is a system of documentation.
This is critical from a regulatory standpoint, but also a practical one. OSHA has extensive recordkeeping requirements for all companies regardless of your industry, and if your records aren’t up-to-date, that alone can qualify as a violation.
When establishing documentation, keep in mind who is using it, where they’re going to use it, and what they’re using it for. Your system must be able to meet all three needs. For example, if your EHS teams travel between construction job sites, they need a documentation system that allows them to record observations no matter where they are, and a system that allows them to access other EHS team member documentation no matter where they are.
Create a Training Infrastructure
Last but not least, every effective team has a robust training infrastructure.
While your EHS team are the resident safety experts, the reality is that they’re not the ones who execute safety much of the time. They’re dramatically outnumbered by the rest of the workforce, which means the rest of the workforce is just as responsible for safety as they are.
With that in mind, training is one of your EHS team’s most critical responsibilities, the tools that set up the whole workforce for safety success.
The Tools Behind Every Effective EHS Team
Like any great builder, every great team has the right tools for the job. Except unlike a builder, your team’s tools are a bit more far-reaching than a hammer and nails.
That’s where we can help, with a variety of EHS software solutions tailored to your needs. Whether you need safety management software, training software, or industry-specific solutions, we provide tools that set your department up for success. Get in touch today to learn more about how we can empower your safety department.
