All about Safety Audits
What is a Safety Audit?
A safety audit is a thorough process of collecting information related to a facility’s safety practices, documentation and records. It helps to assess the quality and efficiency of the safety standards and make sure that they comply with the safety regulation. Safety audits can also identify areas of weakness and improve the safety programs to create better working environments.
Unlike other types of inspections and audits, safety audits are much more detailed and extensive. The safety auditors will visit the site and evaluate the current safety processes and precautions to reveal the gaps and issues. Usually, the results of a safety audit can fall into these three categories:
- Finding incidents of non-compliance with the safety standards.
- Identifying gaps in the processes that can risk the employee’s safety.
- Suggesting better ways to improve workplace safety measures.
How to conduct a safety audit?
There are several steps involved in conducting a safety audit. Some of them are listed below:
Determine the scope of the audit: This step includes identifying the areas or systems that will be covered by the audit, as well as the specific safety standards or regulations that apply.
Plan the audit: This includes developing a schedule for the audit, determining who will be involved (e.g., internal auditors, external consultants), and identifying the resources that will be needed (e.g., checklist, equipment).
Prepare for the audit: This includes organizing any necessary documents (e.g., policies, procedures), arranging for access to the areas that will be audited, and providing training to the audit team as needed.
Conduct the audit: This involves using a checklist or other digital tool to systematically assess the organization's safety performance against the identified standards or regulations. This may include observation, interviewing employees, and reviewing documents and records.
Report the key findings: This includes documenting the audit findings, identifying any deficiencies or areas for improvement, and making recommendations for corrective action.
Follow up on corrective action: This involves tracking the progress of corrective action, verifying that the identified deficiencies have been addressed, and re-auditing as necessary to ensure that the corrective action has been effective.
It is important to involve relevant stakeholders in the safety audit process, including management, employees, and union representatives if applicable. It is also important to ensure that the audit is conducted in a fair, objective, and unbiased manner.
Why Digitize Safety Audits?
Just imagine the amount of work you’re doing with paper checklists for audits — printing the suitable template, filling them on-site, taking it physically to the superiors and then analyzing the results from the handwritten points. It takes an immense amount of work to complete an audit and it doesn’t get easier when the paperwork gets lost.
A digitized safety audit will do away with all the problems you face with paper checklists. From quick editing of the templates to instant sharing, you can focus solely on performing the audit instead of handling the other tasks like moving the paperwork. What’s more, you can save the checklist to the cloud and create instant visual reports to quickly identify the gaps and problems - saving you a whole lot of time!
- Instantly upload photos and media to your reports
- Share reports with your colleagues immediately
- Visualize reports to easily identify problem areas
- Streamline the complete auditing process
- Edit and send templates right away
- Eliminate the risk of losing paperwork
What Are the Different Types of Safety Audits?
Safety audit, as a whole, helps to evaluate the safety program of a company. There are three different types of safety audits that help to achieve this goal.
Compliance audit
Compliance audit strictly looks at the compliances that a company should follow with respect to the required regulations.
Program Audit
Program audit evaluates how effective a safety program is by talking to employees and gauging its practical implementation.
Management Audit
Management audit is a combination of compliance and program audits that simultaneously assess the company’s safety policies regarding compliance and employee feedback to get a complete understanding.
What Are the Best Practices in Conducting Safety Audits?
When we want the workplace safety audit to do full justice, we need to follow certain best practices. By adopting these practices, we can identify potential hazards early and prevent them from becoming huge problems.
- Prepare for the audit by understanding the company and compliance
- Create a customized safety audit checklist
- Conduct on-site inspections
- Check for area-specific hazards
- Go beyond the problem to the root cause
- Gather information from the employees
- Provide suggestions for improvement in the reports
How frequently should safety audits be conducted?
The frequency of safety audits depends on the specific circumstances of the organization or facility that’s being audited. Some factors that can influence the frequency include the type of business or industry, the size of the organization or facility, the complexity of the operations, the risks involved, and the history of safety performance.
In general, it is recommended that safety audits be conducted at regular intervals, as part of a comprehensive safety management system. The specific frequency of safety audits may be determined based on the organization's risk assessment, regulatory requirements, and other factors. For example, some organizations may conduct safety audits annually, while others may conduct them more frequently, such as quarterly or even monthly.
It is important to note that safety audits should not be the only method used to assess and improve safety performance. Other methods, such as ongoing hazard identification and risk assessment, should also be used to ensure that the organization is continuously working to identify and control hazards and improve safety performance.
Key Elements of Safety Audits
Compliance Checks
The team of auditors will review the safety procedures followed to make sure that they’re complying with local, state and federal regulations.
Audit Incident Reports
The auditors will go through the incident reports filed since the last audit was conducted to find out the common issues and identify the problematic areas.
Analysis of Findings
After collecting all the required data, the auditors will analyze the reports based on the current safety processes, hazards and incidents.
Suggestions & Feedback
The auditors can suggest ways to improve the safety standards or be quite satisfied with the processes and provide positive feedback.
Safety Audits Vs Safety Inspections: What Are the Key Differences?
Many use the terms ‘audits’ and ‘inspections’ interchangeably. While the underlying principles of both audits and inspections are the same, they vary a lot in terms of structure and process. Safety audits tend to be more extensive and in-depth than inspections.
In a safety inspection, the person inspects a piece of equipment at a point in time and gives a direct report. On the other hand, in safety audits, a team of auditors examines the entire area and analyzes the safety standards followed over time and checks for compliance. A safety audit will identify the safety processes followed by the company and the impact it makes on the employee’s health. Although different in approach, both safety audits and inspections are crucial for any company.
Learn more about the differences between audits and inspections.
Free safety audit checklists available in Safetymint
Site Audit Checklist
Assess the safety of a site against a detailed checklist to determine its effectiveness.
Workplace Health and Safety Audit Checklist
Examine the safety issues for employees in the workplace setup.
Safety Walk Checklist
Observe the work happening in an environment and suggest the best ways to improve employee safety.
Fire Safety Audit
Collect all potential fire hazards and audit the safety practices implemented to prevent them.
Self Inspection Checklist
Conduct internal audits and inspections with these custom checklists to understand the current safety levels and analyze areas to improve.
Food Safety Audit Checklist
Evaluate the safety standards followed and check with the food regulations and compliances. Read more about our Food Safety Audit Software
Road Safety Audit Checklist
Review the road safety practices against various vulnerable areas from the checklist.
OSHA Safety Audits
Check the safety practices followed in a company against the OSHA standards.
How it works
Key Features of Safetymint Audit System
Versatile checklist builder
Collaborate with your team
Works online and offline
Attain safety compliance
Safetymint is built for new-age auditors who are primarily looking for efficiency and ease of use. Available on desktop, tablet and mobile devices, Safetymint Audit System includes the following key features:
Dashboard that lists the scheduled, in-progress, overdue, completed and approved audits. Filter view to see audit data by frequency, site, audit type and date range.
Search feature to quickly find any past audits by entering search keywords.
Effortlessly build and customize audit forms and inspection checklists, schedule it and assign auditors.
Automated emailers in-app notifications for any type of inter-personal communication – be it when an audit is schedules, overdue or completed.
Conduct audits at remote locations without net connectivity. Your data gets synched online as soon as you get connected to the internet.
Access dozens of ready-to-use free audit templates. Customize these checklists to match your requirement or easily create a new form through our form builder.
Export your audit data to XLS or PDF with a single click.
