This episode is brought to you by C&E Insurance Company, a leading insurance company that provides a broad range of standard and specialized property and casualty, insurance products and services for businesses and professionals throughout the US, Canada and Europe, and is backed by more than 120 years of experience and approximately $45 billion in invested assets. Hi, this is Alyssa Burley with Ranchemases Media Communications and Client Services Department. Thank you for listening to today's top Ranchemason news brought to you by our Safety and Risk Management Network, Studio One. Welcome back everyone.
Today my guest is Lauren Stump, Media Communications and Client Services Coordinator with Ranchemases. Today we're going to talk about safety observations and how they can be documented and managed using the Risk Management Center. Lauren, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me.
It's always great to be back. For listeners who aren't familiar with safety observations, will you give a brief overview of what they are and why they're important? Sure, safety observations utilize job hazard analyses or JHA's to detect any unsafe behaviors in the workplace. The JHA's identify any possible hazards by itemizing what steps the employee must take in order to remain safe while performing the job.
The safety observations then use the items identified in the JHA as a guide when watching the employee perform the job. It's important to conduct regular safety observations to detect areas in the workplace that need attention or employees who need additional training. Observing the employee doing the job can identify issues before an incident occurs and allow the safety manager to track at risk behaviors before they result in a claim. Safety observations pinpoint areas that need to be addressed in the workplace and to provide a mechanism for documentation of the recommended corrective actions, the appropriate personnel to correct the issue and when the correction was completed.
Others can get more information about JHA's in Episode 148, implementing behavior-based safety programs with JHA's. So Lauren, how might an employer use a safety observation? Great question. A safety manager would use a safety observation when visiting the job site.
If they're observing employees pouring concrete, for example, their concrete JHA may identify issues like dust, noise, drying of the skin, rebar exposure, form building, and the list goes on. Under each of those issues, there will be a list of job requirements like wearing a properly fitting respirator appropriate for exposure, wearing hearing protection, wearing chemical resistant gloves, and ensure rebar ends are effectively protected and kept in place at all times. As the safety manager is observing employees, they'll be identifying if the crew or specific employees are in compliance with their requirement. How does the safety manager document if the crew or an employee is in compliance with the job requirement?
In the Risk Management Center, safety observation track allows a safety manager to document the job, date, and who they are observing. It allows them to document whether the employee was compliant or not. And there are varying levels of severity depending on the seriousness of the violation. With any violation of a requirement, the safety manager can identify the root cause, corrective actions, and the responsible party.
The system will even send a notice via email to the responsible party. Once they've completed the corrective action, the responsible party signs off that it has been completed. So if the concrete crew wasn't wearing eye protection, the corrective action may be to ensure all crew members have and wear eye protection. A photo of the group could be uploaded showing they now have an or wearing eye protection.
Reports, photos, and other documents can be uploaded to document that the corrective action was completed. If the safety manager is out at a job site, how do they access safety observation track? Well, there are two options. If they have a mobile device like a tablet, they'll log into the Risk Management Center website to document the observation from the screen.
The other option is to print out the safety observation on paper, complete the observation, then document it in the Risk Management Center back at the office. Okay, so now that the safety manager has completed a safety observation, identified corrective actions, and they've been completed, is there a way to access this information for future trainings, employee reviews, etc.? Yes, and safety observation track, each observation has a summary of what was observed and causes and corrections report. Well, we've learned a lot about safety observations today.
Thank you for explaining why they are important and how to create and manage them in the Risk Management Center. So Lauren, thank you for joining me in Studio One. This is Alyssa Burley with Rancher Mesa. Thanks for tuning in to our latest episode produced by Studio One.
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