Your Safety Matters
Getting & Retaining Members on the OHS Committee
How can we encourage employees to put their names forward for election to the OHS Committee – and how can we encourage them to stay on the Committee?
The answer to that question springs out of the fact that most people like to help and support a group that is successfully working on a worthy purpose. It is vital that employees in your workplace know that the OHS Committee is such a group - here are some suggestions to get the message across;
· Make sure that all employees know the purpose of your OHS Committee - develop your own posters about this and put them up in the workplace – include the purpose in new employee inductions – supervisors can mention it in tool box talks, etc
· Put a picture in each area of the workplace of the OHS Committee member for that area.
· Promote every success the OHS Committee has in making the workplace safe and healthy.
· Display the Minutes of the OHS Committee in areas of the workplace so that all employees know that the Committee is working on their behalf.
· Management should encourage and give 100% support to the Committee and treat OHS members with the greatest respect - and make that known at every opportunity eg. at company functions and in company publications.
· Management should give a written commendation every year to each Committee member in acknowledgement of the work they have done on the Committee – employees love to have these for their CV.
· Make sure that members are given enough time during the day to deal with their OHS member functions.
· OHS Committee members are there because they want to help others – it comes from the heart – they want to help make the workplace safe and healthy. Validate and support them for that at every opportunity.
This publication provides general information about ohs. It is not a legal opinion and does not represent a comprehensive statement of the law to be applied to a particular problem