If your company is working towards the implementation of a Health and Safety Management system, you will definitely need an Employee Involvement and Evaluation Process.

The main objective of an employee evaluation process is to promote and encourage active participation in occupational health and safety activities by all levels of employees. There are several ways to participate in occupational health and safety activities and it is very important that you share all the different examples to your employees. Clear expectations of what the company wants from its employees and managers need to be communicated clearly as well.

Expectations include but are not limited to: attending health and safety training, conducting accident investigations, conducting inspections, closing action items, performing safety observations, using proper work practices, reporting unsafe conditions immediately, and wearing proper PPE. Expectations may be separated by job category. Expectations for management must be defined by level of supervision, i.e., plant manager versus first-line supervisor.

The expectations can be communicated through the company website, pay slip messages, employee central board communications, e-mails from managers, all employees meetings, area / department meetings etc. I recommend the use of more than one method as that will certainly increase your chance to get the message delivered to a wide broad audience.

Enforcement of the use of established safety work practices and procedures is another important subject, which should be also part of the employee evaluation program. This requirement can be met with positive re-enforcement in addition to consistently applied disciplinary procedures.  The site must have a disciplinary policy consistently implemented.

The management team should actively review the occupational health and safety performance of their employees on a regular basis and feedback should be provided. Leading indicators could be used as a way to evaluate the company’s health and safety management system and the engagement from its leadership team. Examples of leading indicators are: training completion, non compliant findings closure rate, completion of accident investigations within 24 hours, health and safety participation in new process/ product introductions, safety inspections completed, attendance at safety committee meetings, safety-dialogues, PPE compliance and other similar metrics appropriate for each type of business and operation.

For more information on how to implement a strong and sustainable Employee Involvement and Evaluation Program at your facility, Contact EHS Zone NOW!

rgomes@ehszone.ca or by phone: 647 515-0643