Supervisor's Safety Manual

Introduction

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Main Table of Contents

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Index

EH&S Home

Revisions

Memorandum

Date: March 3, 2000

To:            Washington State University Supervisor

From:        Dwight Hagihara, Director, Environmental Health and Safety

Subject:    Supervisor's Safety Manual

This manual provides general information relating to your responsibilities as a supervisor for promoting and implementing WSU's occupational safety and health programs. The ultimate goal of these programs is the prevention of accidents by proactively identifying and controlling workplace hazards.

At Washington State University, responsibility for safety and health is shared by the administration, supervisors, employees, safety committees and the Department of Environmental Health and Safety (EH&S). You as a supervisor play a vital role in creating and maintaining a safe and healthy workplace. The supervisor, in directing the day-to-day activities of employees, is the key person in ensuring that WSU is a safe place to work.

This Supervisor's Safety Manual is being provided to assist you in fulfilling your safety and health responsibilities. The manual is designed to be a quick, accessible and easy-to-use reference for all WSU supervisors.

The manual is organized into office, laboratory, and/or shop sections. Each topic has a header at the top of each page indicating if the section applies to a particular workplace (office, laboratory, and shop). Section 1 covers topics applicable to all workplaces. Section 2 applies to both laboratories and shops and the 3rd section applies specifically to shops.

In addition to the technical and administrative responsibilities listed in this manual, the supervisors should also motivate their employees to work safely by creating a safe work culture. A supervisor can create a safe work culture by clearly communicating expectations, leading by example, encouraging and welcoming employees suggestions, ensuring safety rules are followed-and most importantly-acknowledging when an employee works safely.

EH&S offers a variety of safety and health services to assist supervisors in providing a safe and healthy work environment. You can contact us at 335-3041 or visit our web site at http://www.ehs.wsu.edu.

We hope this manual will help you to provide a safe work place for those you supervise. Please let us know how we can improve this manual to make it more useful and informative. Thank you for your time and effort to promote a safe and healthy work place.