On our recent webinar on audits and inspections, our occupational hygienist and subject matter expert, Sébastien Boisvert, offered an overall and detailed vision of what this service can bring to your organization, both in the short and long term.
Considering its great popularity, we have created this summary so we could answer all your questions.
You want to learn more about occupational health and safety audits and inspections? Pay attention to the next paragraphs!
Why should you perform an audit?
The input of a safety audit for your workers will be noticeable at many levels throughout the organization. Among them:
- Help better understand an accident
- Reduce work accidents
- Reach your OHS objectives
- Reduce the costs related to workplace injuries
- Target the risks found in a company to establish deadlines and priorities
- Be proactive regarding the risks of work-related accidents
The long-term positive impact of this type of intervention should not be overlooked. Your organization will have the tools and techniques to make the work environment secure for years to come.
How to prioritize safety challenges?
When evaluating the ways to control the environment and sorting in order of importance the elements promoting workers’ safety, the hierarchy of controls becomes particularly useful.
Often, we may think that the best way to protect our workers is to equip them with personal protective equipment, while eliminating danger at the source may prove much more effective.
For example, imagine a piece of equipment that always produced smoke inhaled by nearby workers.
In this case, the solution to prioritize would be to repair the machine or modify certain aspects to stop it from smoking and not distribute protective respirators to employees working close by.
The audit and inspection service first identifies the safety challenges while providing you with the elements to manage the situation better.
What is the Bird pyramid?
The prevention of workplace accidents is the main objective of audits and inspections. The Bird safety pyramid represents a great mapping on the importance of not postponing until tomorrow the efforts that can be implemented right away.
The main message is that it’s preferable to avoid waiting until it is too late. Procrastination and banalization are harmful to the long-term health of workers.
Acting as soon as a situation arises allows responsible companies to reduce human and material impacts over their entire operations.
Does the law require audits?
By definition, audits are not mandatory, but they are one of your best options properly comply with the following sections of the Act Respecting Occupational Health and Safety:
- Sec. 2 Elimination at the source of dangers
- Sec. 3 The fact that collective or individual means of protection or safety equipment are put at the disposal of workers, where necessary, to meet their unique needs must in no way reduce the effort expended to eliminate, at the source, dangers to the health, safety and physical well-being of workers.
- Sec. 51 Every employer must take the necessary measures to protect the health and ensure the safety and physical well-being of his worker.
What offers an SPI audit?
By reaching out to the SPI’s team of experts, you are guaranteed an optimal analysis of your work environment and a detailed evaluation of the challenges you may face.
Our qualified team takes care of:
- Program audits
- Training and coaching
- Fit testing
- Exposure evaluation frequency
- Workers’ health follow-ups
- Risk analyses
- Workplace inspections
SPI offers an audit and inspection service tailored to your company and your workers. To achieve peace of mind regarding the safety of your workers is a worthwhile investment. Contact us today to learn more about our services!
