Safety Meetings

Safety Meetings are a vital part of any project, The trend these days is for only the high level Managers to attend and in my experience make excuses or make decisions without the site being inspected.

Safety meetings MUST include persons from all grades and various trades ( a roster can be established to give each staff member a turn), the meeting should be preceded by a site “walk around” with notes taken by all attendees, its also an idea for photos to be taken, these can be printed out and given to all persons at the meeting or shown on an overhead projector.

It should also be stipulated that the meeting will be a discussion and remedy format and not a finger pointing hour. Many workers are under pressure and its common for site supervisors to use threats against workers if safety issues may possibly cause a delay in the days work program, the safety meeting attendees should be able to mention any instances of this without fear, this will ensure that workers will feel they can report near misses or any safety concerns they have.

Minutes should be taken and actions that arise placed against relevant persons to resolve and a time period when this should be done, the meeting should have areas of discussion determined so that all safety issues can be discussed, for example:-

  • Review Minutes of previous meeting
  • Actions resolved?
  • Accidents and near misses reported
  • Matters arising ( Site walkabout, general concerns)
  • Plant & Machinery
  • General Issues and Training Required.

There should also be an open discussion on site safety and  everyone attending should join in the discussion and not allow a single person to do all the talking.

The minutes should be typed up and distributed to those present at the meeting as well as the company director/s (as they are responsible for health and safety) and copies should be placed on the site office information pin board so that ALL persons employed on the site can read them.

safety file