Safety Committees
Organizing or re-energizing a safety committee can help your business avoid costs that directly affect your bottom line.
A safety committee can:
- Show upper management's concern for employees' well-being
- Make workplace safety a more formalized commitment
- Allow employees to identify and address safety issues
- Increase employees' safety awareness
- Save time and money by improving work activities
- Make management aware of safety issues
- Reduce the risk of OSHA citations or other state penalties
Who is required to have a safety committee?
Some state laws require employers with more than 25 employees to establish a joint labor-management safety and health committee for their workplace. Employers with 25 employees or fewer may still be required to maintain a committee, depending on the company's safety record and industry.
For all other states, verify if a safety committee is required with your regional OSHA office. In states not required by law to have a safety committee, it is still a good idea to have one.
Committee functions
- Conduct regularly scheduled meetings
- Review incidents that resulted in injury or illness, and any "near misses"
- Take action to correct identified hazards
- Gather safety-related suggestions from employees
- Conduct visual surveys of the workplace to identify concerns
- Promote safety and first-aid training
Avoid these top 10 safety committee mistakes
- Roles are not clearly defined
- Inadequate size of the committee--too big or too small
- Lack of new member training
- No formalized meeting agenda
- Lack of follow-up
- Lack of communication
- Management domination
- Lack of employee participation
- Unable to adapt to change
- Lack of budget
View full detail on safety committees (PDF) 
For specific questions or assistance organizing a safety committee, call your SFM Loss Prevention representative at (952) 838-4200 or (800) 937-1181.
Related web links and SFM resources
These resources, plus more on other topics, are available in SFM's Resource Catalog. |
