Roles and Responsibilities

The roles and responsibilities sub-section explains who is responsible for establishing, maintaining, and reviewing the electrical safety program, and outlines the process by which the electrical safety program is measured and monitored. For now we will assume that this person is you. The team creating the electrical safety program should be a healthy mix of corporate management and ground level employees, as well as safety officials. You want to be able to cover as many scenarios as possible, and a large team with a broad range of different experiences can help accomplish that goal.

This section will outline how affected workers are involved in the development and implementation of the program. Sometimes very important aspects of an electrical system can be overlooked by someone who is not intimately familiar with the finer details and inner workings of the electrical system. If you know someone with more technical or practical experience than you or your team have, it is always a good idea to consult them before implementing a new safety program.

Another thing that roles and responsibilities needs to explain is the role of managerial and executive staff in the creation of the electrical safety program. It is very important that management be made aware of the risks involved in working with any energized equipment at your workplace so that they can make informed decisions about any jobs taking place.

Next, roles and responsibilities should make it abundantly clear that all persons involved in the operation of the facility should have the self-discipline to follow the electrical safety program.

The roles and responsibilities should clearly outline who is and who is not qualified to work a specific job. A qualified worker is someone who has sufficient up-to-date training in the particular job, understands the risks involved and knows how to best protect themselves.

After getting the general OHS completed, you're ready to take the plunge into one of the really big sections of your electrical safety plan: the Planning section, coming next week!