You were recently hired as an occupational safety and health consultant for Gemstone Fabricators, a medium-sized manufacturing facility that makes stainless steel counters, containers, and carts for the food prep and restaurant industries. Several years ago, Gemstone decided it wanted to become an Occupational Safety and Health Adminstration (OSHA) Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) site. It also wants to send the application to OSHA in the upcoming year. Further, there is a keen interest to align with the ANSI/AIHA Z10 standard.
In going through the application submission materials, you noticed something that threw up a red flag, however. Although there was an accountability requirement specified in front-line workers’ performance evaluation documentation for safety performance, there was no such requirement in the performance evaluation documentation for supervisors, managers, or executives. Your discussions with employees also suggest that, although the employer wants the front-line workers to be heavily involved in the safety effort, they are not always sure exactly what they are supposed to be doing to help move the company’s safety programs forward.
Another issue that concerns you is that the effort to implement a safety and health management systems approach appears to be somewhat piecemeal. You are finding it difficult to identify a clear Plan-Do-Check-Act approach to continuous improvement.