The first days, weeks, and months as a safety manager are critical for both you and your employer. 

"New studies show that proactive safety methods, which focus on finding hazards before they happen, greatly improve safety on construction sites." 

Therefore, having a detailed guide that details critical milestones in the first six months to ensure safety success is crucial.

For safety managers starting their new role, this guide deals with the topics that you must know to thrive in your field, including:

• Current safety assessment
• Leadership alignment meeting
• Safety team participation
• Full safety walkthrough
• Event data examination
• Hazard identification and risk assessment

You will also learn the actionable tips related to safety management software, for better leadership support, and leveraging cutting-edge technologies to usher you through the first six months in the safety manager role. 

Assess the Current State of Safety

In your first month, you should focus on assessing the company's safety. Gather and review all safety documentation, including:

• Safety protocols: Look at the company's safety manual, programs, and standards. Are they current, detailed, and regulatory compliant? Are they readily accessible to employees and regularly reviewed by them?
• Training records: Compare safety training to employee training. Are there gaps in any training? What is trained the most/least? Are employees required to complete regular safety training based on the established standards?
• Injury/incident data: Review injury, first aid, near miss, and incident logs from the last one to five years. Are there trends? Patterns? What are the most common incidents? What department/task has the most incidents?
• Inspection of reports: Look at safety inspection reports from facility, equipment, tool, and vehicle routine inspections. Were there any hazards identified? Has there been a follow-up on identified hazards?
• Safety committees' minutes: Look at the minutes from at least last year's safety committee meetings. What safety issues have been discussed? What has the safety committee proposed or implemented?
• Other documents: Review permit-to-work procedures, contractor safety standards, JSAs, safety audits, workers' compensation claims, environmental sampling/monitoring results, OSHA 300 logs, and other safety department documents.

This data will provide a clear picture of the safety program's weaknesses and strengths. It will enable you to develop a focused action plan to correct deficiencies. 

Tip: Be sure to include members of the safety team in the review of this data. They may think of things that aren't readily apparent to you.

Meet with Leadership

To secure support, align safety goals, and integrate safety as a shared corporate priority, it is essential to establish early contacts with leadership.

Your meeting plan could be like this:

Safety managers can use this plan to outline meeting topics, discussion topics, and collaboration based on leadership level. It simplifies communication, helping safety managers create relationships and integrate safety objectives with business goals.

Meet the Safety Team

Set up 1:1 meetings with each person on the team to learn about their background, roles and responsibilities. This will help you understand how work and safety processes currently function.

During these meetings, make sure to:

• Learn about each person's background, experience and skills related to safety. How long have they been in their role? What training have they received?

• Understand their specific role and responsibilities within safety. What do they do on a day-to-day basis?

• Get their perspective on current safety processes and procedures. What's currently working well and what are some opportunities or gaps in our efforts to improve safety?

• Ask each person about the challenges they face in their role related to safety. Are there current roadblocks preventing them from doing their job effectively?

• Seek their input on any ideas they may already have for enhancing our safety program. You're new and your team is closest to the issues, they may have valuable insights.

Why is it important?

Taking the time early on to engage with each person will make it clear that you value their perspective and that you'll be a resource and advocate for their team. You'll also learn from those who are closest to the work when it comes to skills, challenges and ideas. 

With an understanding of your team, their skills, their challenges, and their ideas, you can begin to build plans to enhance your safety processes and culture.

Conduct a Safety Walkthrough

It is your first few months as a safety manager, so conducting comprehensive safety walkthroughs across all facilities and job sites is crucial. Here's how this approach benefits you:

• Get to Know the Place: Roam around, see everything.
• Spot the Risks: Find trip hazards, faulty guarding, missing gear.
• Meet Your Team: Say hi, ask for thoughts. Open chats.
• Check Safety Habits: See if they're following rules.
• Inspect the Machines: Look for damages, leaks, missing safety bits.

Conducting these walkthroughs provides a snapshot of the current safety status, helping you prioritize risks and develop an effective action plan. Additionally, engaging with employees fosters a visible and committed safety culture.

Review Incident Data

After meeting with leadership and understanding high-level safety goals, one of the first tasks for a new safety manager is a deep dive into the company's incident data. The data will reveal injury causes, trends, high risk tasks, and the costs associated with incidents.

To get started, pull 3-5 years of your OSHA recordable injuries, first aid cases, near misses, vehicle incidents, and workers' compensation claims. Review the descriptive information for each, paying careful attention to injury causes, body parts affected, departments and other patterns you see. Review trends over time, like:

• What injury types are increasing? 
• Which are decreasing?
• What tasks and areas of the facility have the highest incident rates?

Also analyze the costs of incidents, including medical treatment, lost time, light duty assignments, property damage, fines, legal and other costs. What injury types are the most costly for the company? What departments or areas of the facility have racked up the biggest incident bills?

Your deep dive into your incident data will illuminate some key priorities for your safety program. 

For example, if strains on the back are increasing every year in the warehouse while slips & falls have steadily dropped on the production floor, you know where you'll need to focus your attention. The numbers also will help you build an action plan and make a business case for the safety investments you need to make. When you're ready to start presenting your ideas to the leadership teams, you'll want to have data-driven insights about incident causes, costs and trends to make your case.

REMEMBER: Your review of the past will set the stage for making much-needed safety improvements in your new role as a safety manager.

Identify Hazards and Assess Risks

As a new safety manager, conduct a beta walk-through, not a superficial tour, to identify any potential hazards or risks. So, as you wander around, look (really look) for:

• Poor housekeeping or obstructed walkways
• Lack of proper guarding on machinery
• Electrical hazards like frayed wires or missing covers
• Improperly stored hazardous materials
  • Any other conditions that could lead to an injury

Document using photos and detailed notes like a safety observation report. (If it's not documented, you didn't really inspect it.)

Develop an Action Plan

After accessing hazards and risks, the action plan is how you deal with immediate threats and set long-term safety goals. 

A clear list of objectives, roles and due dates keeps safety efforts focused, resources used efficiently, and safety performance monitored on an ongoing basis. It’s proof of dedication and concrete change within 6 months – making the workplace safer and more resilient.

Here are some examples of how clear your action plan should be:

Example Action Plan For A Manufacturing Company:

Manufacturing and mining companies generally have a lot of risk points to address, so here's what your manufacturing action plan should look like:

Establish specific deadlines and tasks for each urgent manufacturing issue. Such as:

• Unguarded Machinery (Deadline: 4 weeks)
  • Identify machines lacking proper guarding.
  • Implement guard installations and conduct employee training.

• Blocked Emergency Exits (Deadline: 3 weeks)
  • Inspect all emergency exits for obstructions.
  • Develop and execute an exit clearance plan.

• Lack of Proper PPE (Deadline: 2 weeks)
  • Assess PPE inventory and identify deficiencies.
  • Procure necessary PPE and conduct training sessions.

• Unsafe Work Practices (Deadline: 5 weeks)
  • Observe and document unsafe practices.
  • Develop and implement revised safety protocols.

Simultaneously, outline long-term goals tailored to manufacturing:

• Recordable Incident Reduction (Goal: 10% reduction in 6 months)
  • Analyze incident data for root causes.
  • Implement corrective actions and preventive measures.

• Near-Miss Reporting System Implementation (Goal: 8 weeks)
  • Design a near-miss reporting system.
  • Conduct employee training on reporting procedures.

• Supervisor Safety Training (Goal: Completion in 5 weeks)
  • Identify safety training needs for supervisors.
  • Conduct targeted training sessions.

Implementing Software Solutions for Ultimate Success in 6 Months as a Safety Manager - SafetyIQ

By being committed to integrative safety solutions, high-caliber performance, and transparent operations and platform technologies, SafetyIQ becomes an essential resource to safety managers who are eager to pave the way for success during those first six months. 

This tool has a lot to assist with safety management in any industry because it offers:

Data-Driven Incident Prevention

• Collect Safety Data: SafetyIQ connects every piece of information, consolidating it into one centralized platform of safety data.
• Holistic Safety Modules: It includes modules like Incident Reporting, Audits & Inspections, and Hazard Identification to ensure nothing is missed.

Integrated Safety Solutions

• Seamless Integrations: SafetyIQ is an open platform that works with any software, so you can have one place to manage all worker safety in the field.
• Connected Technology: Leverage features like GPS Devices, Vehicle Telematics, and Automated Reminders to ensure you’re taking a connected approach to safety.

Journey Management with Real-Time Insights

• Enhanced Journey Management: With this tool, your handheld GPS devices work as a part of your Journey Management Planning to provide you with real-time GPS location data.
• Automated Itineraries: When you’re ready to travel, simply upload your itineraries, and your GPS devices will use the itineraries to automatically create checkpoints as you move. You can also set up speed parameters to ensure improved safety during travel.

Building a Safety Culture

• Promoting Awareness: SafetyIQ makes it easy for everyone in your company to be involved in safety awareness and the reporting of incomplete safety.
• Quality Onboarding: When you work with this tool, you get industry-leading selected account onboarding. Our real account training is guaranteed to deliver prepared safety during the life of our partnership with you, so you can count on high-quality products and services provided with goal-oriented and tangible safety results.

Transparent and Supportive Customer Relationships

• Transparent Engagement: We view our business relationships as a teaming relationship and engage with you in a transparent and supportive manner, working together with you to achieve the desired safety outcomes.
• High-Performing and Goal-Oriented: Finally, SafetyIQ is a goal-oriented and delivery-focused organization, which is another way of saying for you that we understand all companies have goals, and we mean to help you achieve them by delivering the highest quality products.

By weaving data-driven insights, integrated technologies, and an emphasis on creating a corporate culture that revolves around safety, SafetyIQ collaborates with safety managers to create a work environment that is secure and predictable.