What Is An Industrial Safety Checklist?
An industrial safety inspection is required by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to protect workers from hazards and injuries at work. These guidelines help companies identify potential hazards in the workplace and provide suggestions for preventive measures and steps on how to mitigate or remove them. They also serve as guidelines whether the work practices and processes comply with the safety regulations mandated by the law.
Conducting regular safety inspections using a checklist allows companies to closely monitor unsafe conditions and work behaviors that might put their employees at risk of injuries or accidents.
During an inspection, a qualified safety officer will tick boxes that help him/her/them identify and record work-related injuries, incidents, and illnesses. After the evaluation, companies will create a series of preventive control measures and safety audits ensuring that safety is always maintained.
4 Common Hazards To Prevent With Safety Inspections
Hazards are ever-present everywhere and if there are no safety mechanisms in place, especially in the workplace, accidents and injuries can easily occur due to negligence. If you raise your own awareness and become familiar with common hazards and workplace accidents, it is much easier to prevent them, true to the motto: Forewarned is forearmed.
These are the most common health and safety hazards in the workplace:
1. EMOTIONAL TRAUMA
Aside from visible bruises, wounds, or burns, people can develop physical, emotional, and mental trauma after going through an accident or injury. Yet, these incidents can be prevented by conducting a thorough inspection.
Aside from accident-caused emotional burdens, stressful working conditions can also cause emotional trauma. If not addressed appropriately and immediately, these can develop into mental health issues that can affect employee performance as well as other aspects of their lives.
2. FATIGUE
Tired employees can negatively affect your business as well as your performances and services. Especially tired drivers can cause serious injuries to themselves as well as other road users. Tired employees are less aware of safety hazards and will thus endanger themselves or their colleagues. Educating your employees on the importance of sleep, sleep durations and consequences will act as a preventive measure and help fight sleep deprivation.
3. POOR POSTURE
Poor posture can cause repetitive injury syndrome, and improper posture can result in physical conditions that make you more prone to workplace accidents, injuries, and illnesses. When doing some tasks, encourage your employees to stand, or sit using correct posture to prevent body pains and other aches in the body. You can also improve equipment (e.g. desk chairs, tables) used to help your employees take charge of their health.
4. POOR INDOOR AIR QUALITY
Poor ventilation can result in various health issues like allergic reactions, respiratory problems, sinus infections, and more. Workers can help monitor these health hazards by being aware of the importance of having good indoor air quality and opening the windows to air out the room regularly. Especially during cold season, or during a pandemic like Covid-19, proper ventilation is vital to keep employees safe.
Some of the factors that affect the quality of indoor air are:
- Extreme temperatures
- Poor HVAC quality
- Toxic cleaners and air fresheners
- Mold
- Off-gassing from paint, furniture, and carpets
The Advantages Of Digitizing Your Safety Inspection Checklists
The digital world has brought a lot of conveniences. Instead of manually adding numbers, you can use a calculator. Just key in a few buttons and you can have the correct answer in a matter of seconds. Having a digital checklist to monitor safety and health hazards at work can make life almost as easy.
A digital document is easy to prepare and access. It is also convenient, sustainable, and cost-effective compared to paper checklists. Keeping everything clear and simple will make your checklist easy to understand and comply with. If rules and regulations change, you can simply adjust the digital document and everyone is always up to date immediately.
Below are the advantages of using a digital industrial safety checklist:
- Accessibility and Availability
Digital checklists are easy to access. It’s also a space-saver because they don’t need large filing cabinets. When someone wants to access them, all they need is to hit a button on the computer or mobile device and digital checklists appear. The document will always be available as long as they have been stored in the cloud. - Maintain Compliance Everywhere
When you have a digital copy of your safety checklists, it will be easy for you to monitor if your workplace is compliant with safety regulations in other countries. This is especially advantageous for companies with offices in different parts of the world. - Convenient tracking
Digital records are easy to monitor and amend. When an incident happens, you can document and store it immediately. Then, you can cascade the information to the right people within minutes allowing for faster reaction time to address or solve the issue. - Easy reading
Old papers can become creased or discolored, and the writings get blurred. It is embarrassing to show a crumpled piece of paper and say it is your safety checklist.With a clear and concise safety checklist, your employees will understand and comply with the requirements. Your business will continue to run smoothly and profitably. Having accidents in the workplace can be expensive. The company has to pay for hospitalization and other compensation. Your establishment might be penalized and labeled unsafe.
Perform Industrial Safety Inspections With A Software
The safety and well-being of your employees should be the priority of any employer. Healthy employees make up a good work force, are more motivated and deliver better and faster results. Being known for taking care of your staff also is a great way to attract new employees and brand yourself as a company that cares.
Lumiform allows you to perform safety inspections wherever you are – via the flexible mobile app that you can use on your smartphone and tablet, online or offline. Create and adjust checklists effortlessly and follow inspections in real time.
- Paper checklists are tedious and impractical: They get lost, making changes requires a lot of administrative work and on top of that they’re also wasteful. With Lumiform you make our product work for you, conduct more efficient audits and conserve the environment at the same time.
- Choose from our plethora of ready-made templates and kickstart your digital inspection journey.
- If you have specifications, adjust templates or simply create your own checklists with Lumiform’s flexible form builder.
- The intuitive mobile app is with you wherever you go and helps you conduct inspections effortlessly.
- Our automated analysis feature helps you uncover any threats fast and effectively so that you can concentrate on improving processes continuously.
