What is a Health and Safety Program?
An Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) program is made up of plans, procedures, reporting tools, and recordkeeping. Once a company has one in place, it ensures operations are carried out in the most safe, healthy way possible.
While workplace health and safety planning is vital for keeping yourself and your workers safe, it is also simply good business practice for efficiency and reducing claims costs.
You know your workplace best!
Every workplace has different needs for safety planning – there is no “one size fits all” approach to safety planning. No matter what form it takes, your OHS program should create and maintain an action plan for how you will:
- Define safety responsibilities
- Identify and control hazards
- Orient and train workers
- Investigate workplace incidents, injuries, and unsafe work refusals
- Monitor health and safety issues and activities in your business.
What should be in your OHS program?
There are certain items all workplace safety programs are required to have by law, including documenting inspections, safe work procedures, and hazard assessments.
What you need for the rest of your safety program is determined by the number of employees at your workplace (under or over 20 employees), and the risk level associated with typical jobs workers will be doing. This is why it’s important to understand the hazards workers may be exposed to at your workplace, as it will influence how you set up your safety program.
