Safety & Risk Committee 2.0 – Part I

Public sector organizations face similar struggles in different locations. Typically, safety professionals often inherit systems that are less than world-class. Your assignment is:

1. Accept it as is
2. Allow the system to lapse into obscurity
3. Make improvements to the existing system with the resources available

I have been assigned to fully functional committees, dysfunctional committees and those that hovered in between those two zones. Imagine you are the newly hired safety officer charged with the daunting task of creating a safety committee from thin air in a city with 12 departments.

Did I mention there was no supporting city policy? Yes, that was me years ago. I started out with a very basic concept, a mission statement, a small membership, and a two-page policy that I edited from my previous private sector employer.

In the beginning, it was good, until the first generation of members rotated out of the committee. The second-generation members weren’t bad. They were not empowered to do anything. As a result, attendance, accountability, communication and management involvement started decreasing.

It was at that point that I recognized burnout was on my horizon. If I didn’t change things, nothing would change. I discussed with my boss how to make that happen. We completely revamped the structure, the accountability and management involvement.

By the Numbers - Then

We created a three-year plan of all the things we needed to do as a city to become OSHA compliant. Safety & Health Programs, Haz-Comm Programs, Emergency Action Plans, Safety Data Sheet entry and maintenance. We met with city management and the directors from the high-risk departments to pitch our request that included:

1. Mandatory OSHA 30-hour training for all committee members. I cannot expect my members to enforce safety if they do not have the training to understand basic OSHA compliance.
2. Members would represent the high-risk departments like police, fire, utilities, public works. All the administrative departments would be represented by the safety officer.
3. Extend tours of duty from two years to three years to better support the 3-year plan
4. Delegate workplace inspections and audits to committee members
5. Add safety to all performance evaluations with a 15 percent overall rating
6. Include vehicle accident reviews
7. Develop Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

In one year’s time, the deliverables spoke for themselves.

By the Numbers - Now

By the end of the first year, we learned and accomplished a lot in a short amount of time. Stay tuned for Part Two of this series.