Conducted for health, safety, and fire hazard identification, safety audits help companies assess their workplace and jobsite compliance. Audits focus on identifying potential hazards and evaluating compliance with all applicable regulations, fire codes, and OSHA standards. The following steps will help make your audit a success.

Safety Audit Preparation

  • Determine the audit’s scope based on accident and inspection reports and managerial input, and set the audit date, start, and stop time.
  • One week prior to the audit, inform all affected managers and supervisors. Ask them to gather all records, documents, and procedures.
  • Review all past program area audits and corrective action recommendations.
  • Review all company, local, state, and federal requirements for the specific program, and become familiar with all document, inspection, and training requirements.

Fact Finding – Use a fact-finding approach to gather all applicable information, and try not to form opinions or make evaluative comments.

Most audits can be broken down into these areas:

  • Employee Knowledge – OSHA requires that employees understand how to perform their job in a safe manner on a daily basis. The individual’s required knowledge level varies based on job task, specific duties, and responsibilities.
  • Record and Document Review – Records are a company’s proof  regulatory requirements have been met. Missing or incomplete documents/records indicate a program is not working as designed.
  • Equipment and Material – Inspect the equipment’s material condition and applicability for hazard control.
  • General Area Walk-Through – A general work area walk-though provides additional insight into safety program effectiveness. Perform hazard and PPE assessments, and note unsafe conditions or acts observed during the walk-through.

Review Safety Audit Findings – After all documents, written programs, procedures, work practices, and equipment are inspected, formulate a concise report detailing all program areas.  Address each program requirement, noting deficiencies and including positive comments where applicable.

Recommendations – Develop recommended actions for each deficient program condition. Avoid simply making more rules, adding recordkeeping requirements, or making production tasks more difficult. Examine the manner and means by which the current deficient elements are managed, and determine if a simpler process exists.

Corrective Actions – Involve the managers and supervisors responsible for corrective action execution, and set priorities based on hazard levels. Assign a completion and review date to all corrective actions, review all completed corrective action records through the management chain, and file them for use during the next audit.

Publish the Safety Audit Results – Communicate the basic findings and recommendations. Don’t forget to acknowledge those departments, managers, and supervisors who are properly executing their responsibilities. After a few audits, everyone will want to show up on the positive list.

Our safety consultants are available to assist with developing programs or performing safety audits at your facility or worksite. Please contact Kelly Kramer, CECD, HEM, at 800.738.8395 for more information.

Additional Offerings

Safety training and consulting are only some of RETTEW’s 600+ services. Our safety team works hand in hand with engineers, scientists, project managers, and other technical experts at places such as manufacturing facilities, drill pads, and commercial construction sites. We are well respected in many industries and known for ensuring workers and equipment remain safe, which keeps your projects on track and your bottom line growing.