Table of Contents
1. Safety is Everyone’s Responsibility
2. Leadership and Management Roles
3. HSE Department Responsibilities
4. Roles of Supervisors and Foremen
5. Contractors, Subcontractors, Visitors and General Workers
Introduction
At GTL (Grow Like Tree), we believe that safety is a set of comprehensive rules that bring shared value and consistent commitment. Building and maintaining a healthy and safe environment requires active engagement and participation from every involved individual. Senior management plays a crucial role as influencing leaders, leading by example where other staff follow their footprints. Additionally, their strategic planning and consciousness are embedded into every action and decision.
This article outlines the general and specific roles and responsibilities that employees must follow to increase ownership and accountability, which leads to continuous improvement.
1. Safety is Everyone’s Responsibility
It doesn't matter the position or title; every individual is responsible for their own safety while upholding and promoting the shared value of the HSE plan. It's a collective approach and effort that brings active engagement from every employee at all levels. However, roles and responsibilities usually depend on employee positions, where several OHS responsibilities may apply.
- Each employee or staff member is accountable for prioritizing safety factors in their routine and non-routine activities.
- All employees must follow established policies, procedures, and guidelines, and additionally, they should recommend any changes if gaps or issues are identified.
- Employees are responsible for taking part in health and safety initiatives and activities such as attending regular monthly or weekly meetings, morning toolbox talks, and mock drills.
- Every individual is responsible for reporting workplace health and safety risks & hazards, which include unsafe acts, unsafe conditions, and anything that has the potential to harm humans.
- Employees are responsible for reporting incidents and accidents, no matter how minor or major. Prompt reporting will assist the organisation in identifying the root cause and implementing long-term corrective actions to prevent recurrence.
2. Leadership and Management Roles
Basically, managers, supervisors, engineers, and team leaders have unique roles and responsibilities to promote a positive health and safety culture. Their behavior plays a critical role in encouraging their team members to adopt safety practices.
Key Responsibilities:
- As a manager, consistently follow safety procedures, policies, and standard protocols that reinforce the importance of safety within the organisation.
- Leaders are overall responsible for effectively communicating all safety standards and ensuring their teammates understand them. Clear communication will definitely help to promote safety practices and engagement.
- Leaders are responsible for performing frequent inspection audits to identify potential gaps and threats that could lead to workplace incidents.
- All incidents and accidents must be investigated thoroughly to identify the root causes, immediate causes, and contributing causes to prevent similar incidents.
- Establish a procedure for performing risk assessments for every activity that is being performed within the business premises.
- Implement a reward and recognition program where acknowledgment of employees encourages them to follow safe procedures, increasing their continued and collaborative effort for a safe and healthy environment.
- One of the very important responsibilities is to provide suitable and sufficient resources for the activities and ensure they are safe for the workers to use.
3. HSE Department Responsibilities
Ultimately, the HSE department is a key component that adds continuous effort to form a healthy and safe environment. They serve as a partner resource and guide, working with all departments in a collaborative manner to develop effective health and safety management systems, provide support, and monitor performance.
Key Responsibilities:
- Preparing, updating, and maintaining HSE policies, procedures, standards, and local regulatory requirement implementation.
- Ensuring the company complies with all applicable local, national, and international industry-specific HSE regulations.
- Developing and delivering training and evaluation programs to all employees according to the nature of the job they perform, which helps them to understand and recognize the associated health and safety risks.
- Incident and accident management is a critical component of the Health and Safety department. They give top priority to leading the investigation, identifying the actual root cause, and ensuring all findings are addressed, documented, and communicated with the entire team.
- They must perform frequent performance tracking and trend analysis with all leading and lagging indicators to identify areas for improvement.
- Based on all identified threats to the organisation, the safety team, along with the operation team, must prepare and coordinate the emergency response plan and conduct regular mock drills to evaluate the plan's effectiveness.
4. Roles of Supervisors and Foremen
All team leaders are responsible for their team members; their primary role is to demonstrate health and safety policies and procedures in practical, day-to-day actions on the job sites. The collective action and awareness of every employee, regardless of their designation or department, often determine an essential part of creating a safety culture.
Responsibilities Include:
- Onsite teams must regularly perform site inspections and walkthroughs to ensure compliance with HSE policies and procedures, and additionally, to identify potential hazards.
- Conduct pre-job briefings and safety talks prior to beginning the activities. Moreover, ensure work instructions are adequately communicated with the involved team.
- Actively monitor to identify unsafe behavior and unsafe practices, and immediately address and correct them before they turn into incidents.
- Do regular consulting to understand and recognize workers' concerns and take necessary action.
- Ensure all workers and coworkers are well aware of the emergency response protocol and reporting channels to ensure concerned persons are notified.
5. Contractors, Subcontractors, Visitors and General Workers
It's crucial that all contractors, subcontractors, and visitors are familiar with and adhere to high HSE standards. We must ensure that before entering the site, all contractors, subcontractors, and visitors have received the necessary induction or orientation training programs to prevent them from accidentally encountering hazards.
Responsibilities:
- Attend initial orientation and induction training programs to get all necessary knowledge and general instructions.
- Follow and comply with all safety policies, procedures, and site-specific HSE requirements.
- Every employee at the worksite must perform their task under competent supervision and monitoring.
- Any site issues, including unsafe acts, unsafe conditions, and anything that has the potential to harm, must be reported to the concerned person.
Conclusion
The roles and responsibilities in health, safety, and environmental protection are not just limited to their job descriptions or their designations. Every individual, regardless of position, plays a part in forming and ensuring workplaces are safe, our communities are protected, and teams are empowered to grow personally and professionally. By embracing these responsibilities and supporting one another, organisations not only meet regulatory requirements but also create a culture where people want to work, safety is second nature, and success is shared.