Generally speaking, job procedures are a list of the specific steps that are required to complete a specific task while at work. A "safe job procedure" will explain how to perform the job successfully. Some people confuse a "safe job procedure" with a "safe work practice", which is more of a tool to provide general awareness rather than a list of steps that need take place for a job to be successful.

Admittedly, both safe job procedures and safe work practices are not the most exciting of safety related topics. In fact, they are often overlooked by many smaller businesses in order to focus on other areas of their business. When looking at how a business completes their work, overlooking the importance of safe job procedures can be detrimental to the company's workers and reputation.

Effectively developed and implemented safe job procedures will:

• Provide workers with a plan for how to safely complete a job.
• Communicate the quality and service expectations that a small business owner wishes to maintain if they are not present at all work sites.
• Identify the hazards and precautions that are expected when completing the specific task.
• Reduce the likelihood of workers being injured when completing the job identified in the safe job procedure.
• Decrease the frequency of quality or service errors.
• Provide a reference to any external information that may be needed by an unsupervised workforce. 
• Act as a marketing tool for the company when bidding on new work by assuring prospective customers that a defined process exists for work that your business is contracted to perform. 

If you feel that your business could benefit from an established set of safe job procedures, please visit the contact page. We would be happy to help. 
 

In the unfortunate event that an emergency situation befalls your company, having an emergency response plan (also known as an ERP) is absolutely critical in the successful management of the incident. At a minimum, the plan should include the following information:

• Emergency contact numbers for emergency responders (EMS, Fire Department and the local Police if 911 s not available in your area)
• A list of the company’s incident response representatives (Operations, Safety, Human Resources, Legal, Public Relations, and senior management designates are typically identified)
• Diagrams indicating reporting requirements and company representative responsibilities
• A clearly defined set of directions on how to access work sites
• Maps of your company’s work locations (both a general site map and a detailed structural diagram to indicate emergency exits and critical safety equipment)
• Contact information for applicable regulatory agencies, security contractors and environmental clean-up specialists, retained lawyers, communications spokespeople and retained medical professionals (as applicable)
• Employee Assistance Program representative contact information

 It is also important to conduct drills that test the plan that has been created. Drills can be easily scheduled in Outlook or other email system calendars for easy reminders and universal notification for the parties involved. More mature ERP systems will often require that the contact representatives learn the jobs of the response members that are junior and senior to their positions so that in the event that one of the representatives is unavailable, the process can still be seamlessly implemented.

The ERP system is a valuable tool in post-incident management and its complexity will vary depending on the size and nature of your business. For help implementing an emergency response plan for your business, visit the contact us page.

Taking daily notes seems like a simple concept, right? Planning the day, recording conversations, ideas for improvements or corrective actions are some of the usual items that I record in my daily planner, and I’m betting that most safety professionals are much the same.

When I record my notes, I am usually quite messy; my hand writing is often sloppy, I scribble all over the pages and I’m left-handed on top of that.  It sometimes makes it difficult to quickly recall information, which is critical in the field of workplace safety.

The easiest way that I have found to help make my notes faster to read and prioritize is to colour code them. 

For example, when I am planning the normal “things to do” list during my day (call so and so, prepare X report, meeting at whatever o’clock), I will usually record the items in a black or blue standard ink.   This isn’t anything earth-shattering and is exactly the same way that just about everyone records their daily activities.

The next step that I take to make my notations more effective is to apply a different colour to problems, set-backs or goals that have not been met and apply another colour to any improvements, new ideas and projects that have gone well.  This way, I am able to record all of the things during my day that went well and also the things that went off-track.  Throughout the work week, I am able to refer to the improvements or new ideas that I want to see created and am also able to organize and quickly identify anything that I might need to follow up on for projects that did not work out very well.

I use red and green as contracting colours in my notebooks.  When I read anything in red, I know that I need to follow up on it and when I read anything in green I know that I have an improvement that I need to set into action.  I normally use the Blueline (www.blueline.com) series of notebooks.  Even their medium sized books will hold two pens in the coiled ring, which makes multiple ink colours easier.

The last step in my colour coding process is to make a summary page on either a bi-weekly or a monthly basis.  This helps to create a quick guide for lessons that have been learned from any set-backs and will identify the improvements that have implemented.  During any performance appraisal, quickly recalling improvements during the year has been vital in showcasing my efforts to open potential opportunities for advancement or improved compensation.

Hopefully you can implement and see benefit from some of these ideas into your daily notations.