Help Supervisors Fulfill Their Safety Duties

Because supervisors are on the front line when it comes to identifying safety hazards and ensuring that workers are aware of these hazards and follow safety rules and procedures, they’re a key component of the OHS program.

But supervisors also have other duties, such as ensuring that production deadlines and quotas are met. And often their safety duties take a backseat to these other responsibilities.

We recently asked you to rate your front-line supervisors’ attention to health and safety. You told us that, when it came to focusing on health and safety, your supervisors were:

• Good (27%)
• Fair (22%)
• Poor (22%)
• Average (17%)
• Excellent (12%).

I hope I’m not the only one troubled by the fact that “excellent” was at the bottom of the list—and that “fair” and “poor” were so high. In fact, these results indicate that 61% of responding safety professionals rated their supervisors on health and safety as only average or worse.

Supervisor Resources

Clearly, supervisors need help when it comes to health and safety. And safety professionals are perfectly positioned to provide that help.

For resources that explain supervisors’ duties under the OHS laws and help you help supervisors fulfill those duties, go to the OHS Insider’s Supervisor Compliance Centre where you’ll find, among other things:

• Information on who in your workplace could be liable as a supervisor—it may be more people than you think
• Seven lessons on supervisors and due diligence
• A supervisor competency checklist
• Special supervisor training requirements.

Our sister site, SafetySmart, has many tools to make your supervisors’ jobs easier, such as safety talks, leader sheets, quizzes, online training and injury tracking forms. (You’ll need to be a Safety Smart member or sign up for a trial membership to access these tools.)