Use the following steps if you are asked to write questions for a safety inspection.
- Determine the area to be inspected.
- Ask workers in the area what tasks/jobs they do.
- Ask them to send you a copy of applicable rules.
- When you receive the rules (don’t panic) read through the applicable sections and mark those rules that you feel might result in serious injury if violated.
- Change each marked rule into a simple question. Questions will start with the words: Do, does, is, are.
- Construct your checklist using the questions you have developed.
- Show your boss. He or she will be surprised! (You will probably become a safety director!)
By its very nature, the walk-around inspection, as a process, suffers from a very serious flaw. It is ineffective in uncovering unsafe behaviors because most inspectors look primarily at hazardous conditions and do not take enough time to effectively analyze individual task procedures. Sometimes the inspectors walk into an area, look up, look down, look all around, and possibly ask a few questions, and move on to the next work area. In fact, the safety inspection may be effective in uncovering only a small percentage of the causes for workplace accidents because the process only looks for conditions. Think about it: isn’t it possible to inspect a workplace on a Monday, and then experience a fatality on Tuesday as a result of an unsafe work behavior that the inspection failed to uncover the day before? You bet it is.
