Training supervisors
Supervisors play a key role in the maintenance of a safe and healthy workplace. Consequently, safety and health professionals need to ensure that supervisors have had the training they need to be positive participants in the process. A Safety&Health survey revealed that only 53 percent of the companies responding provide safety and health training for their supervisors. This is an unfortunate statistic because supervisors are the safety and health professional's link with employees. In the words of Peter Minetos, "Supervisors...are the ones who have to teach employees the safe way to conduct their jobs. With proper training, they can spot and eliminate risks that are waiting to create havoc for their workers."
According to the NSC, the objectives of supervisor safety training are to
•involve supervisors in the company's accident prevention programs
•Establish the supervisor as the key person in preventing accidents
•Get supervisors to understand their safety responsibilities
•Provide supervisors with information on causes of accidents and occupationnal health hazards and methods of prevention
•Give supervisors an opportunity to consider current problems of accident prevention and develop solutions based on their own and others'experience