Human Resources

Getting Employee Involvement Started

Meet with employees in one large group (if not unwieldy) or in groups by shift or craft, depending on the nature of your worksite.
Explain the safety and health policy of your worksite and the objectives that you hope to achieve.
Explain that you want employees to help with the safety and health program. Ask for their suggestions.
Try to use as many of the reasonable suggestions as possible in some visible way.

Form a joint committee. It should be large enough to represent different parts of your worksite without becoming unwieldy.
Try to have equal numbers of management and non-supervisory employees on the committee.
Choose management members who have enough "clout" to get things done.
Ensure that the safety and health staff serves as staff for the committee.
If your worksite has collective bargaining agent allow that organization to decide the method for choosing non-supervisory members.
If your worksite is not unionized, consult with a qualified labor relations professional on the best way to obtain employee participation if you decide to use a committee.

Employers most commonly involve their employees in the workplace safety and health program by having them conduct regularly scheduled, routine physical inspections. Employees work from a checklist.
Employees will need adequate and appropriate training.
They should be expected to help with decisions about hazard correction as well as hazard identification.
You also may choose to ask the committee to study one or two difficult safety and/or health problems that management has been unable to resolve. If so, you must demand serious work and, in return, give the committee's;suggestions serious consideration.
Once the committee is well established and functioning successfully it will be in a position to suggest other ways to involve your workforce usefully in the safety and health program.
Always remember that it is the employer who has ultimate legal responsibility for ensuring workplace safety and health.

Source: Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations