Guest speaker series
Building & Facility - Health & Safety

by Alan K. McDonald


The following persentation was made by Mr. Alan K. McDonald during the October 12th, 1999, Building Operator's monthly meeting.

A series of fundamental questions regarding Health and Safety Programs were discussed. The following is a list of these questions.
Do you have an Health & Safety Program?

  • Does it work?
  • What are the benefits of having an Health and Safety Program?
  • How do you prove you have an effective Health & Safety Program?
What is the level of Management Commitment?
  • Does it help or hinder your efforts?
  • Is Health & Safety part of your management system?
Have you initiated an Harzard Assessment & Control System?
  • Do you perform regular formal inspections?
  • What is your Reporting System?
  • Are workers motivated to use your Reporting System?
  • How are they motivated?
  • How do you identify harzardous acts & behaviours in the workplace?
  • How do you identify hazardous conditions in the workplace?
  • Have you inventoried all Task to establish their level of hazard?
  • Have you prioritised and written Safe Work Procedures for the more hazardsous tasks?
How do you orient new employees and contractors?
  • Are they adequately trained and certified?
  • How do you know?
  • Do you have a standard training program?
  • Do you use buddy system?
  • Do you understand the four levels of competency?
How do you manage the Health & Safety activities of your contractors and sub-contractors?
  • Do they have specific guidelines for working in your facility?
  • Do they understand them?
  • Are you sure?
What Emergency Response Plans do you have in place?
  • Are rthey sufficient to prepare for all potential emergencies?
  • Have you included your local stakeholders?
What Incident Reporting and Investigation System do you have in place?
  • Do you understand the diffence between Immediate and Root Causes?
  • Have you trained key people in Incident Investigation and Analysis?
On behalf of all members of the Building Operators Association (Calgary), I would like to thank Mr. Alan K. McDonald of Pulse-8 Safety Consultants Inc.for his very informative presentation. This subject will be of great benefit to all members. Alan can be reached by phone at 403-279-0013, by fax at 403-279-3465, by e-mail: alanm@pulse-8.com. Visit his web site at www.pulse-8.com.



First published November 1999
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