Pumping out safety plans, procedures, SOP’s, etc. mean nothing if people are not trained on them, oh and they have to be understood! What good is a plan if no one knows what’s in it, what to do, or how to do it? You can have all the fancy paperwork in the world that you either downloaded, adopted, inherited, or maybe even wrote yourself and they are all tucked neatly in a binder or in a file on your computer, but if someone walked up to an employee and asked them what they would do in a specific emergency or safety related situation and they had no idea what you were referring to-you have a problem.
PROCEDURES/PLANS/SOP’S + TRAINING & UNDERSTANDING = SOLUTION
Today’s topic came from reality, as it does every day-companies in a wide variety of industries are pumping out these state generated COVID-19 Safety Plans, (example: construction sites), and they may not be specific enough as all jobsites/buildings/situations are different, crews changing by the moment, sub-contractors in & out, misc. other people and scenarios are in a constant state of change. Lots of moving parts. Whatever the scene is, one always has to account for the “what if” factor. Now, it would be impossible to document things that haven’t happened but riddle me this-Crew A comes back from lunch, new subs (Crew C) are on the job filling in for Crew B), scenario changed-what to do? Supervisor or Forman gathers everyone (Crew A & Crew C) and does a quick toolbox talk (documented of course by a sign in sheet) and alerts new crew C of the safety protocols on the job for their crew A. Problem solved.
People need to be trained on policies and procedures and it needs to be understood and documented. End of story. Safety Sarah can help-ask yourself the hard question-have I crossed all my t’s and dotted all my i’s? If not or you need help, don’t be afraid to ask!