Health and Safety jobs are rising in popularity due to their great wages, fulfilling day-to-day operations, and long-term sustainability.
However, a lot of people don’t even know what the job entails until they get very far into their training.
Today, we want to remedy that by going over the most common job duties Health and Safety Officers are responsible for in their day-to-day operations.
Let’s get started.
1: Employee Oversight
First and foremost, a health and safety officer will carry out frequent observations of employee behavior as they perform their duties. This is not to interfere with them doing their jobs but to instead ensure that they are following safety protocols and maintaining safe behaviors throughout their shifts. This can prevent workplace accidents, and in some cases, save lives.
2: Equipment Inspections
Many of the workplaces health and safety officers are required in are filled with equipment that is potentially very dangerous. When the machinery is working properly, and employees are behaving safely, this isn’t a problem. However, avoidable equipment malfunctions can be disastrous.
It is a health and safety officer’s job to inspect machinery to ensure that it’s not faulty or prone to malfunctioning while employees are using it. This inspection process also includes checking whether employees are equipped with necessary safety gear, such as chemical PPE, especially in environments where hazardous substances are present.
If something is found to be faulty, it is reported to management and appropriate repair technicians to keep employees safe.
3: Incident Reports
This is a common job duty for health and safety officers. Despite all of the effort that every member of a team puts into making safety a number one priority, accidents still happen. No matter how small an incident might be, a long-lasting injury might develop. So, it is a health and safety officer’s job to report any incidents to management and write up detailed incident reports that are kept on file.
This prevents employees from pushing themselves through an incident and potentially harming themselves in a more serious manner, and it ensures that proper steps are taken to correct the accident while also maintaining documentation of it in case it becomes an issue in the future.
Incident reports are also written when potentially dangerous things happen with machinery, or when employees demonstrate unsafe behaviors that could result in injury if they’re not immediately corrected.
4: Managerial Incident Guidance
When an accident does occur, the health and safety officer does more than just write it down, report it, and move along. They also provide management personnel with guidance on how they can correct the issue or what steps need to be taken to ensure it is resolved appropriately.
5: Safety Plan Guidance
Finally, a health and safety officer is an all-around safety expert. In general, he knows the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations that apply to a workplace, and it is his responsibility to ensure compliance. As such, he is equipped to provide knowledge about workplace practices and safety equipment that management staff might not be aware of. For instance, warehouses will need proper training for using equipment like forklifts and heavy machinery. Similarly, workers dealing with chemical substances would require nitrile disposable gloves and other safety gear to prevent chemical burns and such hazards. A health and safety officer can ensure that the company knows what safety regulations to follow depending of the nature of the work.
A health and safety officer leverages that knowledge by working very closely with management to develop new and improved safety programs and plans that innovate how the workplace approaches its safety needs. This is an integral part of any business, and it puts the health and safety officer at the forefront of meaningful advancements within the company they work for.
