Rob’s Best Practices
With a career in safety spanning decades, Rob Chraska shared some of his best practices to creating a safer place to work in our latest On-Demand Fireside Chat: The Catalyst for Health and Safety Change.
Have a balanced scorecard approach
One of the most effective ways you can prevent future incidents is by looking at both leading and lagging indicators. Many safety professionals focus on what has happened in the past, but lagging indicators are not the foundation of a proactive safety approach. To truly stay ahead of incidents and illnesses, you must have a balanced scoreboard approach. This not only includes lagging indicators such as Total Recordable Incident Rates (TRIR) and Days Away Restricted or Transferred (DART), but also leading indicators like training, inspections, and all the other things that have been done to improve your lagging indicator scores.
Think about the management of change process
Management of change is an important process you need to implement when any changes are made to your organization. An important part of this process is assessing any new health and safety risks or hazards which could arise from these changes. This step is crucial, so you have the chance to implement any controls needed before any changes are made.
Develop your risk register
A risk register is a record of all risks which have been observed at the workplace. It’s important to use such a tool to be able to quantify risks, based on your knowledge of what is most likely to occur and most significant. This way you can take a more proactive approach to safety. Don’t forget to review your risk register at regular intervals to see if there’s anything that has been overlooked, if controls are still effective, if any additional resources are needed, etc.
Conduct a gap analysis
A gap analysis is a type of safety audit where you can evaluate your safety procedures against industry requirements. This is key to making sure that you are always compliant and that no deficiencies in your safety program are hidden. You can then take this one step further by comparing your safety practices to what is considered best-in-class. This will provide you with an accurate benchmark of excellence vs. compliance in your industry.
Get employee feedback
At the center of it all are your front-line employees. They are the heartbeat of your organization, being out in the field day in and day out. Find a way for them to report directly into the safety department with their feedback, as they may have great solutions to problems you may be experiencing, or that you didn’t know were there. With this direct channel, management can also uncover things that they may have missed and collaborate with their teams more efficiently.