• Employers must hold supervisors and managers accountable for enforcing health and safety rules.

Another element of administration/supervision is to ensure that those with safety and health responsibility or accountability can enforce the rules and of course that rules are established.

Take for example the situation of employees eating and drinking in a work area where there are hazardous chemicals. About the only way to control this hazard once the company has trained employees is with a rule against bringing the food in and then having supervisors enforce the rule. If the supervisors don’t enforce it? There will be rampant food and drink in the area. It may start out with one person, but it won’t take long before it spreads and becomes the culture.

Employers must hold supervisors and managers accountable for enforcing the rules. Managers and supervisors, rather than the safety director, should enforce safety and health rules. The department managers then need to enforce that the supervisors are enforcing the rules. Again, it’s that top-down line.