Eddy’s HR Mavericks Encyclopedia
The world's largest free encyclopedia of HR, with 700+ HR articles and podcasts.
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Employee Safety
Employee safety: is it your job as an HR professional? Yes: safety is one of the most overlooked aspects of HR. In addition to keeping your employees healthy, workplace safety is heavily regulated, and non-compliance can end up getting you fined by the government.
What Is Employee Safety?
Employee safety is a pretty broad topic, and we won’t cover every aspect of it here. Employee safety covers your efforts to create a safe work environment for your employees and comply with regulations. Safety usually refers to protecting physical wellbeing in the workplace.
Why Is Employee Safety Important?
It seems obvious that we want to keep our employees healthy. But you may be unaware of other reasons you need to make it apparent that your company has a great safety culture.
- It keeps your employees safe. This is self-explanatory; no one wants to work in an environment where they feel endangered. Although some jobs come with inherent risks, companies can always take steps to mitigate risk and promote safety.
- It keeps OSHA out of your building. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration upholds the standards for workplace safety. If they receive a tip that there is a potential unsafe condition at your workplace, they will more than likely come to investigate. Once inside, they have the ability and right to look at other things as well. OSHA has the authority to charge your company hefty fines.
- It creates a great work environment. If you work for a company where there is inherent risk involved in the work, safety should be top of mind. If you can create a culture around safety, people will want to come work for you because they know you take it seriously and they can work without fear of needless injury.
Employer Responsibilities to Promote Safety
This goes back to creating a culture built around safety. If there are risks in what your employees do on a day-to-day basis, it is your responsibility as the employer to ensure they are able to perform their job in the safest way possible. This responsibility comes from a legal as well as moral and business perspective.
Responsibility 1: Provide Necessary Safety Equipment
The company needs to provide the necessary safety equipment so that employees are able to perform their job under the safest conditions possible. This includes, but is not limited to, eye protection, hearing protection, and safety gloves.
Responsibility 2: Build a Safety Team
If you can’t afford to hire someone to manage safety, get enough people on board within your company to become safety advocates. Start having those conversations about safety and how it can be improved. Include people from all different aspects of the company to ensure that you have created a well-rounded team focused on employee safety.
Responsibility 3: Audit Your Company
Regularly walk through the building, identify potential hazards, and fix them. This is an important step to ensure that you are creating a safe environment, and it will get other people excited to participate as well.
Responsibility 4: Train Your staff
It’s simply not sufficient to only have policies written in your handbook, have a safety team, or audit your company. You must have a training procedure as well to ensure that your employees know and understand the role that they play in the overall safety of the organization. A good safety training program shows that you are committed to developing a safety first culture in the workplace.
Practices You Can Implement to Promote Employee Safety
We have to start somewhere, right? Safety can be an overwhelming topic when you look at it from a big picture standpoint. Break it down into smaller pieces and just start doing small things.
Practice 1: Get in the Habit of Looking for Potential Issues
Correcting small problems right away is easier than trying to correct them after they are a major problem and have caused someone to get injured.
Practice 2: See Something, Say Something
If you see employees engaging in unsafe practices, say something right away. You don’t want to learn later that one of those employees has gotten seriously injured from the situation.
Practice 3: Become an Advocate
Make sure people know you are passionate about developing a culture around safety, and that they can come to you if they feel there is an unsafe situation in the workplace. Become a spokesperson for safety with management and make sure you remind them how important it is to create a safe environment.
What Happens if an Employer Doesn't Report an Accident?
"This can vary by state. Some states require by law to report any and all accidents filed with the employer, other states say only if you have a certain number of employees you are required by law to report. All employees should report accidents to their employer immediately, then the employer usually has anywhere from 30-90 days, depending on the state, to report the accident to Workers Compensation. The employee should watch to make sure that the accident is filed and will know when a workers comp professional reaches out to them directly. If there is no report filed, the employer can face penalties. "Employees can file directly with their state if they do not see the employer do so, this will result in the employer getting investigated and possibly penalized. It is also recommended that employees also get an injury lawyer as soon as they have to file with the state directly. Overall, each state has its own rules and requirements regarding what happens when an employer does not report an accident, but it is up to the employee to watch and follow the process to ensure proper filing or reach out to the DoL directly to report the employer." - Kelly Loudermilk
How to Measure Your Workplace Safety
"This will, of course, be very specific to your industry and your organization but here are a few ideas:
- Calculate your incidence rate (https://www.bls.gov/iif/osheval.htm) and compare it to industry benchmarks. Share the data and seek to improve year over year.
- Conduct safety audits/inspections and track (a) number of items (i.e. file cabinet drawers left open = trip hazard or i.e. missing vehicle inspection reports) and (b) items corrected.
- Conduct safety observations watching (and tracking) employee behavior and unsafe acts – i.e. “observed Employee A lifting from their waist and not with their knees”) and then tracking actions taken (i.e. “did a JIT/one-on-one refresher with Employee A on proper lifting”).
- Tracking of incidents (not just accidents) and near misses) and then treat those as items to pin point root cause and fix/improve/reduce the number).
Be cautious of unintended consequences of mantras like “XX number of days with an incident!” as that may have a chilling effect and people won’t report the things they SHOULD report." - Robin Schooling
Where Can I Learn More About Local, National, and Industry-Specific Safety Requirements?
Every industry has different requirements, every state has different regulations, and sometimes even cities regulate what you need to include in your safety program or training. Our recommendation is to start by looking at the federal regulations for your industry to get the big ideas down. A good place to start for this would be OSHA’s website or the Department of Labor. From there, you can get into more specific requirements by consulting your state and city’s equivalent of the Department of Labor. It is also beneficial to know that not all states fall under the federal OSHA; some have a state equivalent that has the exact same power. We have referenced that list here.
Topics
Nick Staley
Nick is a certified HR professional holding an SPHR and SHRM-CP. Nick has built HR teams from the ground up as well as worked for big corporations. Nick enjoys consulting and training those who are just getting started in HR. When not working, he enjoys spending time with his family.
Frequently asked questions
Other Related Terms
Eddy’s HR Mavericks Encyclopedia
Employee Safety
Employee safety: is it your job as an HR professional? Yes: safety is one of the most overlooked aspects of HR. In addition to keeping your employees healthy, workplace safety is heavily regulated, and non-compliance can end up getting you fined by the government.
What Is Employee Safety?
Employee safety is a pretty broad topic, and we won’t cover every aspect of it here. Employee safety covers your efforts to create a safe work environment for your employees and comply with regulations. Safety usually refers to protecting physical wellbeing in the workplace.
Why Is Employee Safety Important?
It seems obvious that we want to keep our employees healthy. But you may be unaware of other reasons you need to make it apparent that your company has a great safety culture.
- It keeps your employees safe. This is self-explanatory; no one wants to work in an environment where they feel endangered. Although some jobs come with inherent risks, companies can always take steps to mitigate risk and promote safety.
- It keeps OSHA out of your building. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration upholds the standards for workplace safety. If they receive a tip that there is a potential unsafe condition at your workplace, they will more than likely come to investigate. Once inside, they have the ability and right to look at other things as well. OSHA has the authority to charge your company hefty fines.
- It creates a great work environment. If you work for a company where there is inherent risk involved in the work, safety should be top of mind. If you can create a culture around safety, people will want to come work for you because they know you take it seriously and they can work without fear of needless injury.
Employer Responsibilities to Promote Safety
This goes back to creating a culture built around safety. If there are risks in what your employees do on a day-to-day basis, it is your responsibility as the employer to ensure they are able to perform their job in the safest way possible. This responsibility comes from a legal as well as moral and business perspective.
Responsibility 1: Provide Necessary Safety Equipment
The company needs to provide the necessary safety equipment so that employees are able to perform their job under the safest conditions possible. This includes, but is not limited to, eye protection, hearing protection, and safety gloves.
Responsibility 2: Build a Safety Team
If you can’t afford to hire someone to manage safety, get enough people on board within your company to become safety advocates. Start having those conversations about safety and how it can be improved. Include people from all different aspects of the company to ensure that you have created a well-rounded team focused on employee safety.
Responsibility 3: Audit Your Company
Regularly walk through the building, identify potential hazards, and fix them. This is an important step to ensure that you are creating a safe environment, and it will get other people excited to participate as well.
Responsibility 4: Train Your staff
It’s simply not sufficient to only have policies written in your handbook, have a safety team, or audit your company. You must have a training procedure as well to ensure that your employees know and understand the role that they play in the overall safety of the organization. A good safety training program shows that you are committed to developing a safety first culture in the workplace.
Practices You Can Implement to Promote Employee Safety
We have to start somewhere, right? Safety can be an overwhelming topic when you look at it from a big picture standpoint. Break it down into smaller pieces and just start doing small things.
Practice 1: Get in the Habit of Looking for Potential Issues
Correcting small problems right away is easier than trying to correct them after they are a major problem and have caused someone to get injured.
Practice 2: See Something, Say Something
If you see employees engaging in unsafe practices, say something right away. You don’t want to learn later that one of those employees has gotten seriously injured from the situation.
Practice 3: Become an Advocate
Make sure people know you are passionate about developing a culture around safety, and that they can come to you if they feel there is an unsafe situation in the workplace. Become a spokesperson for safety with management and make sure you remind them how important it is to create a safe environment.
What Happens if an Employer Doesn't Report an Accident?
"This can vary by state. Some states require by law to report any and all accidents filed with the employer, other states say only if you have a certain number of employees you are required by law to report. All employees should report accidents to their employer immediately, then the employer usually has anywhere from 30-90 days, depending on the state, to report the accident to Workers Compensation. The employee should watch to make sure that the accident is filed and will know when a workers comp professional reaches out to them directly. If there is no report filed, the employer can face penalties. "Employees can file directly with their state if they do not see the employer do so, this will result in the employer getting investigated and possibly penalized. It is also recommended that employees also get an injury lawyer as soon as they have to file with the state directly. Overall, each state has its own rules and requirements regarding what happens when an employer does not report an accident, but it is up to the employee to watch and follow the process to ensure proper filing or reach out to the DoL directly to report the employer." - Kelly Loudermilk
How to Measure Your Workplace Safety
"This will, of course, be very specific to your industry and your organization but here are a few ideas:
- Calculate your incidence rate (https://www.bls.gov/iif/osheval.htm) and compare it to industry benchmarks. Share the data and seek to improve year over year.
- Conduct safety audits/inspections and track (a) number of items (i.e. file cabinet drawers left open = trip hazard or i.e. missing vehicle inspection reports) and (b) items corrected.
- Conduct safety observations watching (and tracking) employee behavior and unsafe acts – i.e. “observed Employee A lifting from their waist and not with their knees”) and then tracking actions taken (i.e. “did a JIT/one-on-one refresher with Employee A on proper lifting”).
- Tracking of incidents (not just accidents) and near misses) and then treat those as items to pin point root cause and fix/improve/reduce the number).
Be cautious of unintended consequences of mantras like “XX number of days with an incident!” as that may have a chilling effect and people won’t report the things they SHOULD report." - Robin Schooling
Where Can I Learn More About Local, National, and Industry-Specific Safety Requirements?
Every industry has different requirements, every state has different regulations, and sometimes even cities regulate what you need to include in your safety program or training. Our recommendation is to start by looking at the federal regulations for your industry to get the big ideas down. A good place to start for this would be OSHA’s website or the Department of Labor. From there, you can get into more specific requirements by consulting your state and city’s equivalent of the Department of Labor. It is also beneficial to know that not all states fall under the federal OSHA; some have a state equivalent that has the exact same power. We have referenced that list here.
Topics
Nick Staley
Nick is a certified HR professional holding an SPHR and SHRM-CP. Nick has built HR teams from the ground up as well as worked for big corporations. Nick enjoys consulting and training those who are just getting started in HR. When not working, he enjoys spending time with his family.
Frequently asked questions
Other Related Terms
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