THE COHEN GROUP
  Environmental Health & Safety Consulting Services

The Cohen Group Newsletter - Volume 5  Issue 3, Article 2.  September 2003

What Is The State of Your Health & Safety Program?

Mark Golembiewski, CIH, CPEA

Do you really know the state of your health and safety program?  Perhaps you’ve had a nagging suspicion that maybe one of your safety programs isn’t quite meeting all of its compliance objectives or you’re concerned that there could be “holes” in the implementation of your programs that could result in a Cal/OSHA citation if they were identified by a compliance officer.  Or perhaps just having an “outside pair of eyes” look over your program would give you peace of mind. 

An effective health and safety compliance audit of your company’s operations serves as a “point in time” check on your conformance to the criteria that you’ve established for your program.    These criteria can include regulatory requirements, as well as good management practices or other company goals and objectives that go beyond minimal compliance.  An audit can also be designed to examine the effectiveness of the health and safety management systems in place to carry out the mission of ensuring the safety and health of your employees.

Beyond the basic objective of generating specific findings  based on compliance with regulatory standards, a health and safety audit can help facility management by evaluating problems, analyzing the root causes of deficiencies, and working with managers to recommend corrective actions.  The interactive nature of the auditing process lends itself to discussion of health and safety practices simply due to the numerous queries required for the auditor to obtain the information necessary to evaluate compliance with the regulatory requirements.  Opportunities abound for dialogue between the auditor and company representatives during the audit, which should be looked upon as a collaborative process rather than just a one-sided critical examination.  The audit is also a good time for you to “pick the brain” of the auditor for ideas on improving operations or making changes to bring them into compliance.

The Cohen Group can assist you with your auditing needs.   Mark Golembiewski, a Senior Occupational Health and Safety Consultant with The Cohen Group, is not only a Certified Industrial Hygienist, but also is a Certified Professional Environmental Auditor who has conducted audits for numerous employers of all sizes, including petroleum products refiners, distributors and retail stations; small aircraft manufacturers; fasteners and automotive parts manufacturers, and research and development laboratories.  We can tailor an audit of your company’s operations to meet your specific needs, simply focusing on compliance issues, or broadening the scope to cover other criteria and company objectives.  Please let us know if we can help.