Successful safety committee meetings depend on clearly defined roles, responsibilities, and goals. The committee should have access to and communicate regularly with top management through direct reporting and/or distribution of meeting minutes to all officers and department heads. We understand it can be challenging to get started so we’ve put together some ideas for your meeting agendas.
The initial safety committee meeting should be held within one week of the announcement from management and cover the following items:
- Welcome: A senior management leader should welcome members of the committee and thank them for their participation.
- Schedule Meetings: The committee should set an agreed upon schedule that is as convenient as possible for all members (for instance, the first Tuesday of every month at 2 p.m.).
- Select Officers: Determine who will be the committee officers (chairperson, vice chairperson, secretary); you may wish to have temporary officers until the committee has met at least a couple of times.
- Prioritize Duties: Discuss the duties of the committee and determine which should initially receive the highest priority.
- Subcommittee Selection: Select subcommittees to take responsibility for some of the priority items. Subcommittees should advance their projects between meetings of the full committee, reporting progress at those meetings. This should help keep the length of full committee meetings to an hour or less.
Each subsequent safety committee meeting agenda should include the following items:
- Call to Order: The committee chairman should call the meeting to order and the secretary should take the minutes. Guests should be introduced and agenda changes announced. The minutes of the previous meeting should be read and any corrections or changes noted.
- Old Business: The committee should discuss the status of previously submitted recommendations. Any pending old business should have a status report presented. The committee should agree upon target dates for completion of recommendations and other pending items.
- Accident Review: There should be a brief summary of the number and type of incidents reported since last meeting. Any severe or potentially severe cases should identify action to be taken or suggested to minimize exposure. In addition, a brief summary of the number and type of accidents for the year to date and any trends should be discussed. This is also a good time to evaluate the effectiveness of supervisor’s investigation and prevention efforts.
- Inspection Reports: Any safety inspection findings should be reported on and an action plan developed with a timeframe for completion.
- New business: This is the time to comment on new safety procedures, equipment, etc. of interest to the committee. Any safety related training programs should be planned and scheduled.
Each year the safety committee’s progress should be reviewed in order to evaluate the group’s success in helping the organization meet its safety goals and objectives. Identify both progress and deficiencies so the committee’s efforts can be refined as necessary to best help the organization to continue to make progress toward an accident-free workplace.
If your safety committee meetings need additional support, contact Aisha Hartford at 800-462-6435 ext. 233.