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Karen
Karen D. Hamel CSP, CET, WACH, is a regulatory compliance professional, trainer and technical writer for New Pig. She has more than 25 years of experience helping EHS professionals find solutions to meet EPA, OSHA and DOT regulations and has had more than 200 articles published on a variety of EHS topics. Karen is a Certified Safety Professional (CSP), Certified Environmental health and Safety Trainer (CET), Walkway Auditor Certificate Holder (WACH), OSHA-Authorized Outreach Trainer for General Industry, Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) trainer and hazmat technician. She serves on the Blair County, PA LEPC. Her specialties include a wide variety of environmental, safety, emergency response, risk management, DOT and NIMS topics. She conducts trainings and seminars at national conferences and webinars for several national organizations. She can be reached at 1-800-HOT-HOGS (468-4647) or by email karenea@newpig.com.
6 Comments
Isaac Granadossays:
07/04/2016 at 1:57 pmI am doing a presentation on Safety checklist, and I have looked over 29 CFR 1910 and 1926. Verbage pointing out to a “How To” of a safety checklist is hard to find, is the directive meant to be broad about this subject, or do you think I overlooked a certain portion of the material?
Karensays:
07/06/2016 at 8:32 amHi Isaac,
Thanks for your comment! Checklists are a standardized tool that many facilities use to gauge compliance and/or record inspection findings. They are especially helpful for routine inspections because having the inspection items documented on a piece of paper or in an electronic tablet means that that employees do not need to commit all of the inspection items to memory. But, if OSHA has published a comprehensive “how to” on putting together safety checklists, I haven’t found it yet.
There is some guidance on using checklists in OSHA’s Small Business Handbook. They provide more than 40 sample checklists as guidance documents to help facilities with inspections. OSHA does point out, however, that the checklists they provide in this manual are guidance documents only and not all-inclusive. It is up to the employer to add or remove items so that the checklist created is relevant and comprehensive enough to meet the facility’s specific needs.
The same is true of any checklist that you may find online or in publications. They should each be reviewed carefully and customized to fit the specific needs of each workplace, process or situation that is being reviewed or inspected. Customizing checklists helps ensure that your site’s specific safety needs are being met. It will also make inspections easier and simplify training efforts.
Good luck with your presentation!
Thanks,
Karen
lourdes pacuansays:
02/11/2017 at 9:54 amTimely article – I Appreciate the specifics ! Does someone know where my company might be able to grab a template HI Health and Safety Facility Checklist for Child Care Centers form to use ?
Karensays:
02/16/2017 at 8:44 amHi Loudres,
The most comprehensive information that I have seen is: Caring for Our Children: National Health and Safety Performance Standards – Guidelines for Early Care and Education Programs. It is a collection of more than 600 standards for health and safety in child care settings. More information on this book is available at http://cfoc.nrckids.org/
The California Childcare Health Program used this guidance to create a pretty comprehensive set of checklists http://cchp.ucsf.edu/sites/cchp.ucsf.edu/files/HS_Checklist.pdf
I hope this helps!
Karen
Johnsays:
05/15/2018 at 6:21 pmThanks for this list of checklists. I didn’t know OSHA got as granular as to check administrative controls. OSHA helps keep people safe with their standards though!
Johnsays:
07/24/2018 at 5:27 pmI like that idea to create check lists. You wouldn’t want to have OSHA violations. They enforce policies that protect the workers after all. https://quickcharge.com/on-board-chargers-standard.html
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