Building the right safety team can be challenging because it takes people with great core values, knowledge of the regulations and standards, critical thinking skills, common sense, and an open mind. Safety is measured by statistics, but just because people aren’t getting hurt doesn’t mean the facility is safe.
Employees are the most valuable company resource, so workplace safety must be held as the top priority for any operation. One of the three lies people tell themselves is Safety 1st. This tends to be forgotten or prioritized lower when customer demand increases, skilled labor decreases, and profits decline.
Specifications like ANSI and ISO standards were created to define how to properly protect workers from hazards. OSHA at the state and federal levels were created to enforce these standards. Unfortunately, OSHA regulations were written with blood because companies put these standards into effect reactively. This may seem harsh, but the point needs to be made clear due to the high level of accidents per year from poor workplace safety conditions as solidified in the OSHA top 10 most-cited violations list.
