Support for Workplace Safety and Health Programs

Prevention-oriented safety and health programs are a proven way to reduce injuries, illnesses, and fatalities on the job. Encouraging businesses to start and grow these programs is a top priority for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. However, OSHA received feedback from businesses—especially small and medium-sized organizations—that available resources were overly technical and lacked concrete guidance for implementing programs. OSHA asked ERG to develop tools for busy people, not necessarily safety and health professionals, who need practical steps to start and advance programs tailored to their specific workplaces.   

ERG’s project team drew on our in-house expertise in both communications and occupational safety and health to create easy-to-use, plain language materials to help businesses start and improve safety and health programs. These materials show how an approach to finding and fixing hazards before an incident occurs protects workers, while reducing costs and enhancing productivity, quality, and company reputation. ERG created an online Step-by-Step Guide with actionable steps for implementing a program, based on the Recommended Practices for Safety and Health Programs that ERG had produced earlier for OSHA. To further support this effort, ERG created a curriculum on safety and health management for workers and managers, self-evaluation checklists and audit tools, plain language fact sheets on safety and health topics, an example program, conference presentations and giveaways, social media posts, and videos and other tools to promote a culture for safety in the workplace.