NSC Journey to Safety Excellence

The National Safety Council (NSC) launched an initiative last June 2014 if “continuous improvement toward the goal of zero injuries and illnesses in our workplaces.” Source: NSC.org

Dr. David Michaels, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health states, “The National Safety Council has been an important partner throughout OSHA’s history. Their newest initiative, the Journey to Safety Excellence, is essential in helping a company or organization become successful in their quest for and commitment to workplace safety.” Source: nsc.org/learn/NSC-Initiatives

NSC’s ‘Journey to Safety Excellence’ revolves around a model for workplace improvement, focusing on four key elements:

1. Leadership and employee engagement: Leaders foster a culture where safety is fully integrated in the business and is a core value where all employees are engaged and share responsibility;
2. Safety management systems: A strong safety management system is a framework of processes and procedures to ensure that work tasks are completed safely to achieve objectives;
3. Risk reduction: Risk is the combination of the probability of an event and the severity of the injury that may Risk is always present in the workplace and those organizations who actively strive to reduce it will outperform those who do not; and
4. Performance measurement: To manage improvement, it is essential to have measurable goals to track performance, looking at leading and lagging indicators and how they are related.

The goal of this campaign, says NSC, is to:

• Educate employers on the importance of safety in the workplace and offer compelling evidence for the value of investing in safety;
• Establish an understanding of the relationship between safety, employee engagement and operational excellence;
• Provide ways to measure the return on investment (ROI) for safety; and
• Assist in determining performance gaps and next steps to progress on the Journey.

Those who wish to Join the Journey, download the FREE resource Guide on the Journey, or obtain general information, are encourages to visit NSC Initiatives Pages.