A healthy, sustainable, and safe workplace is the key to employee satisfaction, optimum productivity, business continuity, a robust bottom line, and good brand reputation.
To achieve this, you must adopt several precautionary measures and adhere to relevant policies, rules, and standards. That’s not all. You must also undergo Environment, Health, and Safety (EHS) audits periodically, allowing regulatory entities to ensure that you are meeting the necessary requirements. These audits, internal or external, involve assessing your worksite, detecting potential issues or violations, and taking corrective action before the situation worsens.
Let’s delve into the importance of EHS audits and how virtual triage solutions can help you comply with them.
Why Are EHS Audits Important?
In 2023, the U.S. was witness to more than 5,000 fatal workplace-related injuries. No matter how careful you are, avoiding undesirable incidents in the heavy industry is still a challenge.
Hence, it is necessary to get a compliance audit for EHS at regular intervals. This way, you can spot your workplace’s strengths and weaknesses related to health, safety, and environmental sustainability. The auditor can assess your commitment to legal and regulatory policies and standards, helping you manage risks more effectively. The following are the key benefits of EHS audits:
- Better Safety: Authorities watch out for possible dangers and help you to address them before the issues magnify. They also help eliminate or change unsafe practices, in addition to checking safety systems and protective equipment.
- Improved Operational Efficiency: Auditors also look closely into your processes, identify inefficiencies, and offer relevant solutions. This helps you minimise waste, transport hazardous materials properly, utilise resources more efficiently, and reduce operational costs as well.
- Greater Regulatory Compliance: EHS audits help in formally recording the level of your compliance and prove that you take workplace health and safety aspects seriously. This way, you get to earn the confidence of regulatory authorities and avoid hefty penalties.
- Lower Business Costs: Since these audits facilitate constant improvement in workplace safety, you witness fewer injuries and accidents. That means you have to spend less money on emergency room expenses and workers’ compensation. When you excel at EHS compliance, your insurance premiums also go down. Overall, you benefit from reduced business costs.
- Enhanced Brand Reputation: Being EHS compliant can not only earn you brownie points from your employees but also clients, investors, and other stakeholders. Your brand credibility and reputation improve, making it easier to attract top talent and get more business.
Also Read: How Does Injury Prevention Benefit Fast-Paced Workplaces
How to Ensure EHS Compliance
Here’s how to make sure you ace a compliance audit for EHS with flying colors:
- Be aware of the industry-specific regulations outlined by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Department of Transportation (DOT), and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Know the rules stated by other local and state bodies, too.
- Have a compliance plan readily available, which includes safety procedures, employee roles and responsibilities, and environmental impact controls. Add training requirements and emergency response plans.
- Conduct regular hazard assessments that encompass all types – chemical, physical, environmental, and biological.
- Develop a safety program that emphasizes the proper use of protective gear, communication protocols in hazardous situations, safe operating procedures for machinery, and evacuation procedures.
- Maintain reports on workplace injuries, employee training and medical examinations, and safety inspections. Keep environmental licenses handy as well.
- Identify, categorize, and dispose of all kinds of waste in line with local, state, and federal laws.
- Store chemicals properly, monitor indoor air quality, regularly assess chemical exposure among workers, and ensure adequate ventilation.
- Train employees on how to respond to natural disasters, fires, explosions, injuries, and chemical spills. Conduct drills as well.
- Leverage virtual triage solutions to tend to injuries promptly and with first aid whenever possible. This will keep your OSHA recordables low and ensure that EHS audits go smoothly.
How Virtual Triage Supports EHS Compliance
Safety compliance management requires you to prevent incidents as well as handle them efficiently. That is exactly where doctor-led virtual triage services come into play.
In the event of an injury, you can contact a licensed occupational physician immediately by phone or video call. They will ask questions or examine the injury virtually and suggest whether the patient needs a hospital visit or can be treated onsite with first aid. They may share treatment instructions or even prescribe medicines. Such MDs will also support the affected worker mentally, track their recovery, and ensure fast resumption of duties.
So, how does this help your company during EHS audits?
- By facilitating immediate medical attention for injured workers, you indicate that workplace safety is taken seriously.
- They can boost employee satisfaction as well as loyalty. When auditors see that your workers are happy and you are not dealing with too many lawsuits or compensation claims, they realize that you follow rules closely.
- Most common injuries in heavy industries can be tackled with first aid treatment. However, without triage services, you will usually have to send the injured employee to the emergency room. This can spike your OSHA recordable rate unnecessarily, inviting heavy scrutiny and substantial fines. Experienced virtual triage doctors can fix this issue by providing first aid instructions at the earliest.
- In virtual triage, doctors deal with any doubts, queries, and worries, thereby providing moral support to the affected worker. This can translate to minimal business interruptions, helping you comply with the audits easily.
- Often, providers of virtual triage solutions also offer preventive measures like post-offer employment testing (POET) and software for measuring safety engagement. This indicates better compliance with standards, regulations, and policies.
Also Read: Virtual Triage: What Is It and How It Benefits Organizations
Conclusion
In a nutshell, EHS audits are instrumental in enhancing regulatory compliance, workplace safety, operational efficiency, profitability, and reputation. From crafting proper compliance plans and safety programs and assessing hazards regularly to training your workers and maintaining reports, there’s much to do. Availing doctor-led virtual triage solutions can go a long way when you wish to ensure EHS compliance.
To this effect, connecting with a well-known and experienced injury prevention specialist is highly recommended. This way, expert healthcare professionals can help you take proactive measures to prevent common accidents and boost the safety culture.
Ace EHS Audits with WorkPartners USA‘s Virtual Triage Services
At WorkPartners, we are keenly aware of the importance of EHS audits. We offer accurate and fair POET services to make sure your hires are the right fit for their jobs.
modONE™, our safety engagement software, also helps you train workers, gauge their engagement levels, and document incidents and training for compliance. Moreover, we offer virtual triage solutions led by licensed occupational doctors (MDs). They handle workplace injuries readily and efficiently, so they don’t escalate or end up as OSHA recordables or lawsuits. With their aid, you also get to minimize absenteeism and control workers’ compensation costs.
Are you eager to learn more? Contact us today!
If you need us to handle injuries on time, call (800) 359-5020. Have other concerns? Give us a ring at (651) 323-8654. We are also available at info@workpartnersusa.com.
Our address: 2038 Ford Parkway #464, St Paul, MN 55116
