Safety Committees: How Can We Make Them Truly Effective? Seeking Your Guidance

Dear Seniors,

How can we make the safety committee effective? Kindly provide guidelines.

Regards,
Abhay

Hello everybody,

Making Safety Committee Effective:

A few points:

1. The management should be willing to have an active safety committee. If the management just thinks that having a safety committee is merely a legal formality, then the committee is not going to be successful.

2. The workers' participation should be purely through election and not by nomination from management.

3. The committee members should be encouraged to share their views and actively participate in generating ideas for making the workplace safer day by day.

4. The committee members should be educated about the important role they are expected to play in the sustainable development of the industry they are working in.

5. The committee members, especially the workers, should be considered role models for safety and should be educated to promote safety by setting examples.

6. The members of the safety committee should be released from their duties to attend committee meetings, various audits, and other hazard-finding activities. If such members are working in shifts and are not on industry premises during meeting hours, they should be given incentives in the form of overtime or special bonuses for attending the meetings during their off-duty periods.

7. The recommendations of the committee should be valued and implemented, along with a mention of the name of the person generating the idea. This may act as a great motivator.

Hope more points will be added to this discussion in due course of time.

Best Regards,

Raman.

As pointed out rightly by Mr. Raman, the success behind any program is the visible management commitment. This is the first and foremost thing required to make a Safety Committee active. Most Indian organizations create Safety Committees just for the sake of the law, which is the main reason behind their failure.

Secondly, there is a fear complex among the workers. If we commend anything, they wonder whether it will help them or adversely affect them. This can be alleviated by providing proper training to the workers (Committee members) and making them clearly aware of the purpose, which is something most organizations lack.

Assigning clear-cut responsibilities and accountability among the committee members is another factor. And there are many more aspects to consider.

Regards,
Dipil Kumar V

For the Safety Committee Effectiveness, there was a three-day training program by the National Safety Council in Mumbai. I had prepared the training report for my organization. Please find the attachment of the same report.

Let me share a few of my experiences with Safety Committees:

1. The law requires the safety committee to be chaired by the CEO and should include representatives from the workers. I found that if the worker is not the union rep, he normally keeps quiet, afraid of getting into the management's bad books. The solution we had was to have a Management Steering Safety Committee that comprises management who set the objectives, approve resources, and review overall safety performance. Then each department has its own safety committee. There are committees at the operational level chaired by department or section managers. At this level, the worker or non-executive participates.

2. I learned from DuPont that in every safety committee, each member must be given a role to be responsible for in terms of safety issues—planning activities, monitoring the status, and analyzing the shortfalls. These are then presented at each committee meeting. Otherwise, the only people who talk are the chairman and the secretary (normally the safety person). The others just sit and listen, enjoy the tea, and go back. Every action is left for safety to follow up.

I am attaching a file that shows how I recommended an HSE committee set up for an Oil & Gas research institute. Maybe these will help in making safety committees more effective.

Regards,
Gopi

Thank you for your inputs. It's really helpful. DuPont is aiming for sustainable improvement always. What I learned from DuPont is as follows:

"Role and Responsibility Assignment"

Each member is to be given a specific role and responsibility. Ensure that when members come for a meeting, each one has something to say/contribute, and when they leave the meeting, everyone has something to do.

Thanks and keep on sharing your expertise with us.

Guidelines for an Effective Safety Committee

For an effective safety committee, prepare a calendar for committee meetings. Meet regularly, at least once a quarter, well in advance to conduct safety audits before the meeting. Put up boxes to collect unsafe acts/conditions reported by employees. Address the safety audit findings and unsafe conditions/acts during the meeting. Display the safety board showing accident-free days, the date of the last accident, key points from the committee meetings, and action items to be followed. Create a safety index score for every month.