How to roll out a safety manual in 30 days

Before day 1

Name one person to lead the roll-out and give them time to do it. Pick the date you will start, tell your supervisors, and book a short meeting with each crew in week 2. If a client deadline is driving the roll-out, work back from it.

Gather what you will need in week 1 so it does not hold you up: your legal company name and logo, a list of roles and who fills them, the work you do and the equipment you use, emergency contacts and the address of each regular work location, and anything a client has already said it expects to see.

Week 1: make it yours and sign it

• Add your company name and logo. The free brand-it step does this for you after purchase; otherwise use Find and Replace in Word.
• Set the responsibilities to the roles you really have, and name who does what.
• Remove safe work practices for work you never do, and refresh the table of contents.
• Fill in emergency contacts, muster points and first aid arrangements for each regular work location.
• Sign and date the health and safety policy, and record management's adoption of each policy on the Policy Sign-Off Sheets.

Week 2: orient everyone

• Walk each worker through the program with the Worker Orientation Checklist and 30-Day Check-In: their rights, how to report hazards and incidents, emergency procedures, PPE and the safe work practices for their tasks.
• Have every worker sign the policy acknowledgement sheets.
• Post the health and safety policy, emergency contacts and the right to refuse poster, using the text in the Workplace Posters.
• If you need a committee or a representative for your head count, set it up now and hold the first meeting.

Week 3: start the routines

• Hazard assessments: complete the formal assessments for your main types of work, and start field level hazard assessments at the start of each shift or task.
• Toolbox talks: hold the first weekly talk. Every manual includes 52 talks for its trade, one for each week of the year.
• Inspections: do the first site or shop inspection on the schedule the manual sets, and start a corrective action list.
• Records: file every completed form in one place from day one.

Week 4: test and fix

• Run an emergency drill and record what happened and what you will change.
• Score the program with the Audit-Readiness Self-Check: Yes, Partly or No across seven elements, with the evidence to have on file.
• Fix the gaps you found and close the corrective actions from your first inspection.
• Put the year's routines in the 12-Month Safety Calendar so the program keeps running after day 30.

Why roll-outs stall

• Nobody owns it. Name one person and give them the time.
• The manual is edited forever. Make it accurate, sign it, and improve it at the annual program review.
• Supervisors are not brought in first. Walk them through the routines before the crews, because they will run them.
• Forms are filled in but left in trucks. Collect them weekly from day one.
• Orientation is squeezed into a single crowded meeting. Do it crew by crew, with the checklist, and sign each one off.

What you have on day 30

Keep going: the first 90 days post covers the next two months, when the routines become habits and the records start to show trends.

• A branded, signed program that matches your company.
• Signed orientation records and policy acknowledgements for every worker.
• Four weeks of hazard assessments, toolbox talk records and at least one inspection.
• A drill record and a completed self-check with an action plan.

Everything in the kit

Every manual ($499) includes the Implementation Kit, 8 tools that follow this plan: