According to whscc.nb.ca, safety talk is a hands-on way to remind workers that health and safety are important on the job. While ofswa.on.ca describes it as a brief meeting held on regular basis with workers and their supervisors to discuss problems and concerns about health and safety. Principally, it deals with specific topic, subject and problem which are health and safety related in the workplace.
The objectives of a safety talk are to remind workers about potential hazards in their workplaces and help workers to recognize and control these hazards.
They are best delivered by people who are responsible for workers’ safety and health. They may be supervisors, health and safety officers, members of safety committee or anyone with health and safety duties. Even in some companies every worker is scheduled to give safety talk, in order to maintain safety awareness among them.
So what kind of message should we deliver during safety talk? Are there any standard messages? Basically there are no standard messages. As long as we choose a specific topic, subject or problem which relate to health and safety in the workplace, it will be enough. But the important point is safety talk message has to be well prepared, because it should be finished in about 5 minutes..
Now it is the time to set up its schedule. We can perform it once a week, three times a week or once a day. It merely depends on company’s OHS policy, job risks, workplace conditions and worker’s skills.
Choose most appropriate location where we will do it. Wherever possible, choose the real workplace, or at least as close as possible to the real workplace. For instance, if we would like to perform safety talk about confined space work hazards, do it at a tank, at an opened reactor column or near a vessel.
If possible use real tools, equipments, materials (for example chemicals), procedures and work conditions to demonstrate key points of the safety talk we are talking about, and to make it is easy to be understood.
Don’t forget to make a record. Record the date, location, leader, attendants and the topic. Make sure that all attendants have signed on the attendant list. Also make a copy of the safety talk material and keep it together with the records for future reference.
Finally, I would like to stress that although safety talks only take 5 minutes to finish, but it helps employers and workers to remind importance of health and safety, recognize and control hazards, and keeps workers awareness alive. Remember, there are much potential hazards inside chemical plant.
Lukman Nulhakiem is a production engineer at a hydrogen peroxide plant in Indonesia. To learn more about safety in chemical plant, visit his blog chemical plant safety.
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