Decide to Start Now
Decide to Start Now
The time to start your safety and health program is now. You have a better picture of what constitutes a good safety and health program. Now you can address the practical concerns of putting these elements together and coming up with a program to suit your workplace.
Presumably you have been taking notes for your action plan as you went through the preceding description of the Four-Point Program. You should be ready now to decide exactly what you want to accomplish, and to determine what steps are necessary to achieve your goals. Then you will plan out how and when each step will be done, and who will do it.
Your plan should consider your company's immediate needs, and provide for ongoing, "long-lasting" worker protection. Once your plan is designed, it is important to follow through and use it in the workplace. You will then have a program to anticipate, identify and eliminate conditions or practices which could result in injuries and illnesses.
If you have difficulty in deciding where to begin, a phone call to your state consultation program will get you the assistance you need. A state consultant will survey your workplace for existing or potential hazards. Then, if you request it, he or she will determine what you need to make your safety and health program effective. The consultant will work with you to develop a plan for making these improvements, and to establish procedures for making sure that your program stays effective.
Whether you choose to work with a consultant or to develop your program yourself, there are other publications similar to this (available from a state consultation program or from OSHA) which spell out in greater detail the steps you can take to create an effective safety and health program for your workplace. The rewards for your efforts will be a workplace with a high level of efficiency and productivity, and a low level of loss and injury.
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