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One area that many organizations could stand to improve in is safety communication.
The Standard Operating Procedure should be the most basic and persistent safety communication tool in the workplace, yet it is often poorly crafted and ineffective. Over the years, I've read a lot of them, and the most consistent theme I see is an overall vagueness about how a task can be safely performed.
The SOP is often very detailed from a technical perspective yet lacks any vantage concerning safety. Sometimes, however, I actually find procedures which are not detailed at all. They are so vague, in fact, that they leave a lot to the imagination. This is definitely a detriment to safety on the job.
It's imperative that we be specific, otherwise we are just dressing up a generic directive to "Just go do the job". In other words, our SOP needs to say a lot more than "This is what you need to do to perform this task". We need to go deeper, breaking the task down into minute steps. Yet even this is not enough.
From a business perspective, what good is a group of people who have a great idea, if none of them can come up with a practical way to get from point "A" to point "B"? That's a futile situation. A bunch of dreamers - sitting around and dreaming. At most, a bunch of dreamers spinning their wheels and not getting anywhere very fast. Good intentions won't take you very far without a vehicle. Therefore, we introduce a system comprised of processes.
In this day and age, it's not sufficient to merely explain the steps involved in completing a work related task. We must also take into consideration the safety risks associated with each and every step in a procedure.
One way to ensure that your Standard Operating Procedures include adequate safety guidelines is to implement the Job Hazard Analysis. The JHA is a wonderful tool for defining the potential dangers associated with each and every step of a procedure.
If your organization hasn't yet nailed down all of it's SOP's, the JHA can be particularly useful in helping you keep safety in mind while you author them. If you do have written procedures in place for every conceivable task, then you can supplement them with Job Hazard Analyses. The original SOP can serve as the technical document, while the JHA serves as the supplemental safety document.
Ideally, all organizations should strive to fully integrate the JHA into the SOP. The best practice would involve all information from the JHA being included in the SOP. The JHA, however, does not necessarily have to contain all of the information from the SOP.
Writing a Job Hazard analysis does not have to be a daunting task. It's actually pretty easy to do. In fact, the most practical way to get them written is to have someone else write them - namely, the employees who actually perform the job. They will usually be the ones in the best position to identify potential hazards. This may take a little prompting on your part to get them looking at things from the proper perspective. Nonetheless, they will ultimately be the ones best suited to the task. Your job will be to give the final stamp of approval after the JHA has gone through a revision process, during which time you can offer your suggestions.
The simplest of JHA formats can consist of headings such as "Basic Job Step", "Potential Hazards" and "Preventative Measures". Another column for "Additional Comments" can be helpful as well.
It's really that easy and it can make a huge difference.
By starting a JHA program, you'll be communicating how you really feel about safety. Your employees will know you are serious about safety, and secondary to that, so will regulatory agencies such as OSHA. So call a meeting, form some departmental teams, and get started crafting some well written safety communication documents today. You, and a lot of other people at work will be glad you did. Most importantly, everyone will be a lot safer because of it.