Safety audits are an essential tool for any business. They can help identify potential risks and ensure that your business runs safely and efficiently. A comprehensive safety audit will help you assess all aspects of your business, from the physical environment to your company’s overall safety culture.
You can ensure your business runs safely with the right approach. This guide will provide an overview of conducting a comprehensive safety audit for your business.
What Is A Safety Audit?
A safety audit is a gold standard for evaluating a company’s occupational health and safety program. Their primary purpose is to assess workplace hazards, determine if controls are in place for those hazards, and ensure compliance with OSHA standards.
It is important to conduct a thorough safety audit to ensure the safety of your employees and customers’ safety and protect your business from potential liability.
Steps For Conducting A Safety Audit
● Prepare For Audit
Before beginning, it’s essential to figure out who will do the audit and what they will be auditing. Some companies hire external consultants to perform safety audits, while others use an internal auditing team. When using an internal auditing team, choosing a diverse group of people from different areas of the company is essential—including production line workers and managers.
A broader perspective helps you discover overlooked issues. Where the production line employee has in-depth knowledge of a procedure, someone from outside can have fresh eyes to find problems that may be hard for people with long tenure on an operation to see. Ensure everyone on the team is trained to audit so they understand what must be done during an audit.
Before beginning an audit, it is essential to set clear goals. Reviewing applicable standards and codes helps team members determine what they should look for while completing their audits.
● Conduct Audit
During the audit, auditors compare a company’s documented processes with its actual practices. This review includes examining written procedures and how they are carried out in practice.
Some audit teams use checklists, while others simply make observations. Because audits are specific to the facility and are designed to meet its established objectives, it is up to your facility to determine which methods work best for capturing the information.
● Produce An Audit Report And Make A List Of Recommendations
After completing the audit, the team should create a summary report that outlines any important findings. The review should also include an overview of audited areas and interviews conducted with relevant stakeholders.
A good audit report is balanced, describing both positive and negative findings. Also, a complete audit report contains findings and a list of recommended actions and areas for improvement based on those findings.
● Set Corrective Action Priorities
Audits can reveal the need for major corrective actions (improving certain processes immediately) and minor ones to be considered for continual improvement. The audit team should work with managers and supervisors to prioritize the finding based on risk—the higher the risk, the more urgent it is for corrective action.
The team should assign tasks, completion dates, and review procedures for each item. It should also outline how they will record completed tasks so they can be reviewed during future audits.
● Publish Audit Results
Sharing audit results with employees lets them know how the company is doing and where they can improve. Posting audit results helps everyone understand any changes that may be needed and take precautions.
Summary
It is important to conduct a thorough safety audit to ensure the safety of your employees and customers’ safety and protect your business from potential liability.
It may take time and effort to conduct safety audits, but those efforts are always worthwhile—especially because the changes triggered by an audit can help prevent employee illness, injuries, and death.
