Your Five-Year Plan to a Healthier, Safer Workplace

What to include in a health and safety plan

Your long-term plan for health and safety can zero in on specific goals that will help you reduce or eliminate physical and psychological risks in your workplace. Some examples of goals are:

• Improve reporting of near misses or potential hazards, both physical and psychological
• Encourage senior management, management, supervisors, and workers to become more engaged in health and safety (for example, by joining your business’s Joint Health and Safety Committee, taking a mental health awareness course or getting trained in first aid)
• Schedule workplace health and safety training programs or educational sessions
• Fill any gaps in your current health and safety program
• Develop new, or refresh existing, safe work procedures, with input from those involved in the work
• Survey your team for their feedback on your business’s existing health and wellness activities and commit to implementing a new program, like yoga or healthier eating options

How to gather information for your health and the safety plan

Good planning requires some research. The first step to developing your long-term plan is getting a clear picture of your business’s current health and safety offerings. Once you have this information, you can use it to identify the annual initiatives that should be included in your plan. Your research might cover:

• Findings from past health and safety audits at your business
• Common themes from incident or inspection reports
• Data on incidents and injury types at your workplace
• Interviews with front-line staff

Making the most of planning tools

WorkSafeBC has many tools and reports that can help you develop your health and safety long-term plan, including:

• Employer Health and Safety Planning Tool Kit will help you plan targeted safety improvements in your business
• Industry health and safety data provides information on prevention activities, injury rates, and claim costs
• Serious injuries: Data about workplace injuries in B.C. shares data on serious workplace injuries that happen in BC businesses
• Work-related deaths: Data for planning health and safety in B.C. covers trends and patterns in work-related fatalities in BC

Your next steps

After conducting research and evaluating your business’s current health and safety offerings, you’re ready to create your long-term plan. Following these steps can help:

1. Target hazards and risks that are specific to your business
2. Introduce broader programs, like a near-miss reporting program or new wellness initiative that everyone in your business participates in
3. Include milestones and timelines
4. Set tracking processes, such as quarterly reviews and consider how you’ll share updates and communicate with your team

By setting clear goals, gathering data, and involving everyone in your business, you’re well on your way to creating an effective, long-term health and safety plan that will make your workplace the healthiest and safest it can be.