Launching a company-wide health and safety program? Here are some tips.

Beginning or reestablishing a company health and safety program can seem daunting, especially given everything else tent rental business owners and managers have on their plate. The Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) breaks down the task into nine doable steps:

1. Always set safety and health as the top priority. Tell your workers that making sure they finish the day and go home safely is the way you do business. Assure them that you will work with them to find and fix any hazards that could injure them or make them sick.
2. Lead by example. Practice safety yourself and make safety part of your daily conversations with workers.
3. Implement a reporting system. Develop and communicate a simple procedure for workers to report any injuries, illnesses, incidents (including near misses/close calls), hazards or safety and health concerns without fear of retaliation. Include an option for reporting hazards or concerns anonymously.
4. Provide training. Train workers on how to identify and control hazards using, for example, OSHA’s Hazard Identification Training Tool.
5. Conduct inspections. Inspect the job site with workers and ask them to identify any activity, piece of equipment or material that concerns them. Use checklists and other resources, such as OSHA’s Construction Industry Digest, to help identify problems.
6. Collect hazard control ideas. Talk with workers about ideas on safety improvements throughout the project.
7. Implement hazard controls. Assign workers the task of choosing, implementing and evaluating the solutions.
8. Address emergencies. Identify foreseeable emergency scenarios and develop instructions on what to do in each case. Meet to discuss these procedures and post them in a visible location at the job site.
9. Make improvements. Set aside a regular time to discuss safety and health issues, with the goal of identifying ways to improve the program.

For more, go to www.osha.gov.