Podcast: How to prepare for OSHA’s updated walkaround rule — Tips for employers and safety managers

Katie McLaughlin is HSE RAVS Manager at ISN and has over a decade of experience in the industry. ISN’s ISNetworld platform allows customers to share industry best practices, benchmark performance, and provide data insights. In this episode of Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast, Katie spoke with Adrienne Selko, senior editor at EHS Today and Material Handling & Logistics, about the new walkaround rule and how companies can improve their safety cultures.

Below is an excerpt from the podcast:

EHST: What does the new rule mean?

KM: I think the intent of the worker-walkaround rule is really to make sure that employees also have a voice in the inspection process. So, when OSHA does have a compliance officer that visits the worksite, giving both the employer the opportunity to have a representative participate, but also the employees to have a representative to participate to make sure that their voice is heard during that process is really the goal of the updated rule.

EHST: Following up on that, how much influence do employers and/or their union have in choosing somebody for the walkaround?

KM: I think based on what we've understood from the rule, it really is the opportunity. The employer has always been able to, in the original rule, designate a representative. And in this case, there is not a single process or a specific process for an employee to designate a representative. But there are several different ways that they can let the OSHA compliance officer know that they do want to have a representative to participate. So, they do get to designate that individual, whether that's in advance or at the time of the walkaround. But there's not a requirement on who that person is, or a need to do that in advance, necessarily.

EHST: Given this is a change for employers, what are you advising employers to do differently than they did before?

KM: The intent has always been for everyone to be on the same team. For the employer to have the best interest of the employees as part of their focus, and to make sure that the compliance officer has the information that they need to be able to ensure that the workplace is functioning as safely as possible. So, I don't know that there's a lot that needs to be different, provided that there's a strong safety culture in the workplace. If an employer is focused on their safety culture and is focused on building a strong safety culture with all of their employees, then I don't know that there is a lot that's different.

I think a lot of employers would want the voice of the employee to share the specifics about the machine or the process or the equipment. They provide a lot of really valuable insight into the process that can help support the inspection and ultimately help everyone get better, assuming that that's the lens that we're viewing the compliance inspection through. The opportunity to identify hazards hopefully before they cause an issue or there's an incident as a result. And so making sure that you have a trusted workforce that's working alongside and can share that expertise as part of the process, I think continues to add value. But outside of continuing to foster strong relationships between the frontline workers and the leadership of the organization, I don't know that from our perspective there's a lot that needs to be done “differently.”

EHST: So we're looking specifically at the role of the safety manager in these walkarounds. Are there any steps they should take prior to this or do a culture check before we do this? What would you advise them to be diligent about?

KM: I think having a strong pulse on your culture and the perception in the organization really is valuable. ISN has an offering specific to safety culture perception and allows the employer or the hiring client the opportunity to gain feedback anonymously from their workforce on the perception of their commitment to core values around safety culture. So making sure that you have a method to really understand what's working and the perception of the employees. We can invest a lot in programs from a leadership perspective that we feel like are the best programs on the market, but if we don't take time to engage and engage the sentiment of our frontline workers, we don't know what the perception or the impact of those policies and procedures are.

I really think that it's important for the safety manager to be having conversations and to look for ways to engage and to gather the feedback from the frontline workers on things like their commitment to safety and maybe the value of safety over production. So, several different methods, I don’t think there's one singular way, but we do see a lot of value in some really strong insights that we're able to share back with our customers around the culture perception piece that's really able to move the mark on safety performance in the long run.

About the Podcast
Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast offers news and information for the people who make, store and move things and those who manage and maintain the facilities where that work gets done. Manufacturers from chemical producers to automakers to machine shops can listen for critical insights into the technologies, economic conditions and best practices that can influence how to best run facilities to reach operational excellence.