If you’re wondering if your program or initiatives were successful, there are a couple of ways to evaluate this. First, you have to be honest with your answer. Your self-assessment probably isn’t all that off if you are gauging if something was a win or a loss. But if you aren’t sure, just ask someone. You can do this with a more casual conversation or by creating an anonymous safety survey to gather more feedback.

If they were, how did it go for you? Were you able to gather the requested documents easily? Could you answer their questions in a reasonable amount of time? Did you feel prepared? And did any citations result from an inspection?

These accident trends also make great content for your upcoming safety committee meetings.

• When looking at your injuries for the year, what are you seeing? 
• Are there trends and patterns? 
• Are injuries from the same department? 
• How severe were the injuries? 

You’ll also want to evaluate the cost of the injury versus the frequency and severity of what happened. One accident that led to surgery and time away from work can also impact your X-modification rate with your workers’ compensation carrier.

Most need to do this throughout the year. So, at the start of 2024, you’ll need to complete that OSHA 300A form, which will require the log data from 2023. So it’s a good idea to ensure that your OSHA 300 log is up to date throughout 2023, but definitely before the end of the year.

It’s easy to complete if you do it one topic at a time, but it can be hard to manage for just a handful of employees. Take a look and see if your employees are managing this well. 

This is important because if OSHA is on site, they always ask for training. Always. 

And it’s a black-and-white thing. You either have the training done or you don’t. There’s really just not any in-between. So have your employees completed it? And if not, what has the challenge been in getting this done?

You’ve had enough time this year to gather some good data points. Hopefully, you’ve had some year-to-year statistics to help back up your requests.

So how much is safety costing you? It’s important in these budget meetings to reinforce that these aren’t just dollars spent but it’s an investment in your people and your safety culture. 

Easy budget requests could be replacing broken emergency equipment, rethinking how to restock your first aid kits, or replacing some personal protective equipment for employees.