Workplace Safety

The workplace safety side of the blog is the practice that the site runs on every day. The near miss is the leading indicator, and the pyramid is the argument for the reporting; the toolbox talk is the method at the point of work, and the sign-in is the record; the contractor is the gate before the first step, and the prequalification is the check; and the COSHH principles are the five rules that keep the chemical side honest. The articles are the working practice, written so the supervisor can walk them with the crew.

The articles, by the duty: the near miss reporting is the why and the how, and the near-miss pyramid is the ratio that argues for the base. The toolbox talks that work is the method, and the toolbox talk examples are the ten topics, structured. The contractor prequalification is the gate, and the COSHH principles are the five rules for the chemical side.

Every article on this page is written the same way: the working method first, the example that holds, and the mistake that fails the review. The professional version — the sign-off, the audit, the training — runs through umer-hse.pro.

Workplace safety in the UK rests on two general duties. Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 puts the duty on the employer — to secure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare of the workers. Section 3 puts the duty on the employer to the people who are not employees — the visitors, the contractors, the public. Section 7 puts the duty on the worker: to take reasonable care, not to interfere with the controls, and to report the failure. The whole of UK health and safety law is these three duties, and every other regulation is the detail of how they are met. The US starts the same way — the OSH Act general duty clause — and builds the industry standards underneath it.

The daily system that makes the duties real is small and boring, and that is why it works. The planning before the task. The inspection during the shift. The report when something is wrong. The review at the end of the week. The five-step risk assessment sits behind all four of them. A workplace that can show its daily system — the plan for today, the findings from yesterday, the follow-up that closed the loop — will pass an audit that catches a workplace full of certificates and no records.

The articles in this category work the daily system from the floor up: the inspection that finds the problem before it finds a person, the report that moves the finding from the pocket to the system, the toolbox talk that puts the day's risk in front of the crew before the shift starts. Each article is the working method — the check, the record, the follow-up — written for the person who runs the site, not the person who writes the policy.

• The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, sections 2, 3 and 7: the whole system in three duties
• The daily system: the plan before the task, the inspection during the shift, the report, the review
• The site that can show its daily system passes the audit; the site full of certificates does not
• The duty to report the failure is section 7 — and it is the fuel of the whole system