What Is Due Diligence?

Due diligence is a process of taking the care and time to understand safety and production requirements of a job or task. Supervisors have a responsibility to ensure that every part of the task or job is challenged against a standard of safety to ensure that workers are adequately protected. This is part of the Job Hazard Analysis or Job Safety Analysis that must be completed for each task or day.

Challenging all steps in a job against safety standards is the basic concept of due diligence. Understand the scope of the job and the tasks required first. Then assess each task individually for safety. Finally, establish a plan to control hazards and work safely.

Why Do Supervisors Need Training?

A supervisor is appointed because of training and experience regarding a task or job. The supervisor is directly responsible for the safe completion of the work, and the wellbeing of the workers they are supervising.

Supervisors cannot be expected to inherently know how to perform any supervisory task. Moving from a worker position to a supervisor position requires specific training. Understanding the roles and responsibilities of a supervisor is paramount to being a safe and effective supervisor.

What Happens Next?

Supervisors are tasked with getting a job done. To get the job done safely, supervisors need appropriate training to assess and control the hazards they’ll face. A general awareness of due diligence is a good place to start. Specific training in tasks and hazards faced by an organization or site require specific training.

KMC Safety Solutions offers training, hazard assessment, safe work planning, program development and auditing of health and safety programs. For solutions customize to your needs, contact us:

An understanding of hazards and tasks is the first step to working safely. It is of the utmost importance that all workers understand what could hurt them and what they need to do on the worksite. Without that basic understanding, it will be impossible for workers to stay safe.

With the advance of safety regulations comes the requirement for documentation. It’s no longer enough to simply tell the workers about a hazard. It’s no longer acceptable to assume workers know how to keep safe.

Documentation that can be referenced by workers, supervisors, employers and eventually inspectors is paramount to success. Every job hazard analysis, every safe work plan, every tool box must be recorded and available for reference if required. Traditionally, this information has been kept on paper forms in a book or binder. More advanced options included having a carbonless copy that could be sent to an office or other offsite place for storage/reference later, if it can be found.

The result of all this documentation is typically a mess. It is a significant challenge to find one specific document when it’s needed.

There is a better way. Use a dedicated safety management platform to store forms, record training, and keep on top of worker licences and certifications. Reduce the human management component of safety. Most users find a rapid improvement when automation is introduced.

Having a central, mobile application that can store your information is paramount to success. Each worker should be able to, without hesitation, have access to the health and safety policy, safe work practices, and job hazard analyses of a worksite. Safe work practices and required PPE should be immediately available.

Use a program that is easy to use, instantly updated and always working with the latest version of your forms. Choose a program that is completely customizable to your needs and your industry or trade. A good platform will keep documentation, check lists, audits, forms, as well as reference information in one place that is easy to navigate app or webpage.

The right application will meet as many of your needs and wants as possible. At KMC we don’t sell software, but we use software to make your safety program work as well as it can for you.