Health and Safety Audits

What is a safety audit in HSE and what is its purpose?

Safety audits are usually assessed by independent audit consultants in order to ensure an unbiased review of policies, procedures, and safety management systems, and their primary purpose is to identify health and safety hazards, measure the effectiveness of the measures in place to control those hazards and ensure compliance with the Occupational Health and Safety Administration's (OSHA) standards.

Safety audits are having mainly two purposes:

Safety legislation compliance - these can be carried out by external parties (representatives or a regulatory body) or named an internal team
Safety program weaknesses identification - and this is usually concluded in the optimization of a company's safety management system and identifying corrective actions that should be followed

The most important objectives of a safety audit are to:

Keep a safe workplace
Verify that measures are followed by the employees
Checking if the facility, equipment, and operations meet safety requirements and industry best practices
Analyzing whether the company's record-keeping is up to date

What should be included in the safety audit?

In bigger lines, a safety audit is a rigorous procedure that can be split into multiple phases and can include:

Planning
Check the electrical outlets, air conditioning control and supply, and water pressure and drainage, and report any defects
Implementation
Compiling the report
Corrective actions
Publishing the results

An OHS (occupational health and safety) policy organizes and plans the strategy regarding health and safety, highlighting clearly who does what, when, and how in three sections.

Statement of intent, outlining the company's health and safety goals.
Specific responsibilities for all the involved stakeholders from management to the last employee, based on the positions and roles.
The existing issues that the business has and what urgent measures are in place to ensure that these issues are addressed

Why safety audits are necessary?

Health and Safety audits are necessary not just as a legal requirement but also as a way to ensure that the managed properties are properly maintained to a high standard, meeting any expectation of care towards the health, safety, and welfare of any members who enter or work in the building.

An external health and safety audit is the main procedure that most organizations are applying to be in incompliance with the regulations and the standards.

KEY BENEFITS of an external audit:

Feel confident that they meet current legislation and best-practice standards
Project a positive company image to third parties
Reassure their staff that health and safety are taken seriously
Ensure that both the organization and its personnel are competent to fulfill their respective health and safety responsibilities
Reduce their insurance premiums by demonstrating their health and safety competence to their insurance providers

Regular audits are a vital part of managing any building and meeting all the needed duties in regard to the involved stakeholders. Regular health and safety audits ensure that any changes in the law are reflected in how the Health and Safety procedures are in compliance with needs and mitigate risk.